Lies, Cons,and the American Way

[Alexiev]

OF COURSE 'you' WOULD, and DO. Especially considering the Fact that were brought up being TAUGHT that 'lying' IS ACCEPTABLE, under certain circumstances.

I am just POINTING OUT that IF ABSOLUTELY ANY one WITH this EXACT SAME VIEW, BELIEF, or CLAIM, as 'yours', would like to have A DISCUSSION about 'your CLAIM', then by all means let us. I KNOW the ACTUAL Truth can be and WILL BE SHOWN and revealed.

Despite the all caps insistance, I doubt you "know" any such thing, although you may believe it.

[Age]

Most adult human beings, in the days when this is being written, THINK that 'life', itself, involves 'hard work'.

For the little capitalist, big risk amounts to hard work because big risk brings big reward.

But, 'that', itself, is NOT 'hard work's AT ALL.

For the big capitalist there is no risk and the big reward is in a treasure chest with locks to protect what remains after the government confiscates its protection money; protection money to be used for discretionary expenditures, i.e., voting money for investors in the form of socialist pet projects that often fail in their ostensible intent, but reward those with the inside scoop such as the lawmakers who make necessary adjustments in regulations, waivers, and such rules of the white collars, all for the ostensible purpose of accomodating the progress of society, as their media minions will dutifully parrot. No age, don't try and tell me you don't have a clue, because I just gave you plenty.

ONCE AGAIN, there is NO 'hard work', in 'Life', here NEITHER. Although, 'you', adult human beings, still THINK, Wrongly that even 'life', itself, is 'hard work'.

in the days when this is being written

So let it be written, so let it be done!

[Age]

OF COURSE 'you' WOULD, and DO. Especially considering the Fact that were brought up being TAUGHT that 'lying' IS ACCEPTABLE, under certain circumstances.

I am just POINTING OUT that IF ABSOLUTELY ANY one WITH this EXACT SAME VIEW, BELIEF, or CLAIM, as 'yours', would like to have A DISCUSSION about 'your CLAIM', then by all means let us. I KNOW the ACTUAL Truth can be and WILL BE SHOWN and revealed.

Despite the all caps insistance, I doubt you "know" any such thing, although you may believe it.

'you' are ABSOLUTELY FREE to DOUBT ABSOLUTELY ANY 'thing' 'you' like here "alexiev". However just because 'you' DOUBT SOME 'thing' in NOW WAY means that 'your' DOUBT is right in ANY way.

ONCE AGAIN, what we can CLEARLY SEEN here is "another one" who does NOT SEEK OUT CLARIFICATION but prefers to just ASSUME 'things' INSTEAD.

Just so 'you' can BECOME AWARE 'alexiev" 'your' ASSUMPTION about my capital letters IS Wrong and 'your' ASSUMPTION about what I may believe IS Wrong.

Also, I WILL REMIND that if ABSOLUTELY ANY one wants to ACTUALLY FIND OUT, FOR SURE, what I ACTUALLY KNOW here, then by ALL means let us have A Truly Honest and OPEN, CURIOS, DISCUSSION.

[Alexiev]

OF COURSE 'you' WOULD, and DO. Especially considering the Fact that were brought up being TAUGHT that 'lying' IS ACCEPTABLE, under certain circumstances.

I am just POINTING OUT that IF ABSOLUTELY ANY one WITH this EXACT SAME VIEW, BELIEF, or CLAIM, as 'yours', would like to have A DISCUSSION about 'your CLAIM', then by all means let us. I KNOW the ACTUAL Truth can be and WILL BE SHOWN and revealed.

Despite the all caps insistance, I doubt you "know" any such thing, although you may believe it.

'you' are ABSOLUTELY FREE to DOUBT ABSOLUTELY ANY 'thing' 'you' like here "alexiev". However just because 'you' DOUBT SOME 'thing' in NOW WAY means that 'your' DOUBT is right in ANY way.

ONCE AGAIN, what we can CLEARLY SEEN here is "another one" who does NOT SEEK OUT CLARIFICATION but prefers to just ASSUME 'things' INSTEAD.

Just so 'you' can BECOME AWARE 'alexiev" 'your' ASSUMPTION about my capital letters IS Wrong and 'your' ASSUMPTION about what I may believe IS Wrong.

Also, I WILL REMIND that if ABSOLUTELY ANY one wants to ACTUALLY FIND OUT, FOR SURE, what I ACTUALLY KNOW here, then by ALL means let us have A Truly Honest and OPEN, CURIOS, DISCUSSION.

If you cannot make yourself intelligible, perhaps complaining that you are misunderstood constitutes blaming the victim.

[Age]

Despite the all caps insistance, I doubt you "know" any such thing, although you may believe it.

'you' are ABSOLUTELY FREE to DOUBT ABSOLUTELY ANY 'thing' 'you' like here "alexiev". However just because 'you' DOUBT SOME 'thing' in NOW WAY means that 'your' DOUBT is right in ANY way.

ONCE AGAIN, what we can CLEARLY SEEN here is "another one" who does NOT SEEK OUT CLARIFICATION but prefers to just ASSUME 'things' INSTEAD.

Just so 'you' can BECOME AWARE 'alexiev" 'your' ASSUMPTION about my capital letters IS Wrong and 'your' ASSUMPTION about what I may believe IS Wrong.

Also, I WILL REMIND that if ABSOLUTELY ANY one wants to ACTUALLY FIND OUT, FOR SURE, what I ACTUALLY KNOW here, then by ALL means let us have A Truly Honest and OPEN, CURIOS, DISCUSSION.

If you cannot make yourself intelligible, perhaps complaining that you are misunderstood constitutes blaming the victim.

If 'you' do NOT understand ANY or EVERY 'thing' here "alexiev", then so be it.

Now, if 'you' would like to UNDERSTAND ANY or EVERY 'thing' here, then just SAY what IS UNINTELLIGIBLE, to you, and JUST ASK FOR CLARIFICATION, then we CAN PROCEED. Until then there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in what I SAID and WROTE here that is NOT intelligible.

ALSO, I have NEVER COMPLAINED that I am misunderstood. So, what you wrote here regarding this OTHER Wrong ASSUMPTION of 'yours' is JUST PLAIN OLD MOOT.

And, if just those Truly VERY SIMPLE WORDS that I SAID and WROTE above here ARE UNINTELLIGIBLE, TO 'you', "alexiev", then WHY do 'you' think or BELIEVE this is so?

Oh, and by the way, there is NOTHING I SAY nor WROTE that I cannot make INTELLIGIBLE. So, PRESUMING I could NOT is just ANOTHER example of ANOTHER False, Wrong, AND Incorrect ASSUMPTION of 'yours' here "alexiev".

[Alexiev]

I'll admit, Age, that your posts leave .me baffled. They also fail to interest me sufficiently to desire clarification.

[Immanuel Can]

What sin is a fertilised egg guilty of?

You mean, "Does an in utero human being have a nature disposed to sin?"

Just wait. Ask that question again during "the terrible twos."

I don't understand how you can claim that we are a supreme being's most cherished creation, a sort of mini me made in his own image,...

Wait.

You'd maybe better do some investigation of what "made in the image of God" potentially means. One thing it certainly does not mean is "equal to God in all respects." Another is certainly "morally perfect." My personal view is that man, alone, of all creatures, is endowed with self-awareness, moral understanding and volitional freedom -- characteristics that other creatures do not possess, but which God most certainly does.

But whatever you wish to imagine it means, you need to add the next events in the Christian account into your thinking: that man (and woman) were "created in the image of God," but now they are fallen from the state in which they were created. The Christian view, then, is that human beings today are not at all in the state in which they were created -- they are fallen from it, and defiled by sin.

But it seems you also don't distinguish between us being creatures with a sin nature, and creatures who have actively sinned. Those also are distinct (but related, obviously) claims. An in utero human being has not actively sinned; but latent within every member of the fallen human race is the propensity toward sin, the nature to sin, a nature that will most certainly issue in active sin when the time comes.

Now, which is worse: that we have sinned, or that we are instinctively the kinds of creatures that long to sin? Is it our doing or our being that is the problem? And whose fault is it that our rebellion against God has made us that kind of creature?

Plugging all that in, what's your question?

[Sculptor]

Thirteen minutes, of how the US has been turned in to a swamp by Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT6uGR99sh8

[Gary Childress]

Our mythology suggests that the "American Way" is dilligence and hard work, which will be rewarded financially (and is morally admirable). This mythology is promoted by the Capitalists who fruitlessly wish that it were true.

In fact, if there is an "American Way" or an "American Dream" it resides in the quick score. It sent our ancestors scrambling to California and the Klondike in Gold Rushes that impoverished the vast majority of the rushers. It is reflected in our election of the con-man Donald Trump as President. Lottery tickets sell well.

Mark Twain once said, "Show me a man who don't lie, and I'll show you a man who ain't got much to say." (Or perhaps that quote is a lie, too)

Two current news stories remind me of this.

First, Sam Bankman-Fried is on trial for defrauding customers out of billions of dollars in his crypto-currency company and his hedge fund. Yello Kid Weil, perhaps the greatest American con-man, once said that you can't con an honest man. You have to find those looking for an "angle". Crypoto-currency seems the perfect opportunity. It's a con, and those investing are looking for a quick score, like the Gold Rushers of yore. I haven't followed the case closely enough to have an educated opinion about Bankman Fired's guilt of innocense. What do others think? Is crypto-currency a con? Is Bankman-Fried (the son of two Stanford Law Professors who specialize in legal ethics and are also being sued for accepting gifts from their billionaire son) guilty?

Second, two superstars in social science are being accused of fraud. Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino are leaders in the post-modern movement that has questioned the foundation of classic Economic Theory: the notion that economic man is a "rational actor". Of course they are right ---but it also appears that they have both fudged their data to support their conclusions. Ariely was an economics professor at MIT, Gino a professor at Harvard. They rose to the top of their professions (with $50,000 lecture honororiums) by publishing paper after paper explaining how and when people lie and deceive. It appears that they were themselves lying and deceiving (I just read a current New Yorker article about them, but I can't find it on line to provide a link). Perhaps the dishonest are prone to studying dishonesty.

Is lying immoral? If so, would it be immoral to lie to protect a friend, or lie to the Gestapo about where the Jews are hiding? If these lies are acceptable, doesn't that show that it is not lying ipso facto that is immoral, but some result that comes from lying? Any opinions?

Apparently the "American Way" and the "Russian Way" complement each other well. If we wish really hard and click our heels 3 times will the oligarch gansters of the world all self implode and disintegrate?

[Age]

You mean, "Does an in utero human being have a nature disposed to sin?"

Just wait. Ask that question again during "the terrible twos."

I don't understand how you can claim that we are a supreme being's most cherished creation, a sort of mini me made in his own image,...

Wait.

You'd maybe better do some investigation of what "made in the image of God" potentially means. One thing it certainly does not mean is "equal to God in all respects." Another is certainly "morally perfect." My personal view is that man, alone, of all creatures, is endowed with self-awareness, moral understanding and volitional freedom -- characteristics that other creatures do not possess, but which God most certainly does.

God having 'Self-awareness' in NO way means that 'you', human beings, necessarily do.

For example, just ASK a human being, in the days when this is being written, 'What is the answer to the question, 'who am 'I'?' and the PROOF that human beings are NOT YET ACTUALLY endowed with 'self-awareness' becomes VERY CLEARLY OBVIOUS.

Although some human beings WILL STILL BELIEVE otherwise.

But whatever you wish to imagine it means, you need to add the next events in the Christian account into your thinking: that man (and woman) were "created in the image of God,"

WHY did 'you' 'now' ADD the 'woman' word here?

but now they are fallen from the state in which they were created. The Christian view, then, is that human beings today are not at all in the state in which they were created -- they are fallen from it, and defiled by sin.

AND, OBVIOUSLY Truly LOST and CONFUSED, in the days when this was being written.

But it seems you also don't distinguish between us being creatures with a sin nature, and creatures who have actively sinned. Those also are distinct (but related, obviously) claims. An in utero human being has not actively sinned; but latent within every member of the fallen human race is the propensity toward sin, the nature to sin, a nature that will most certainly issue in active sin when the time comes.

"immanuel can" 'you' do NOT even YET KNOW how to DEFINE and EXPLAIN the 'sin' word Accurately AND Correctly.

As 'you' can VERIFY and PROVE for 'us'.

Now, which is worse: that we have sinned, or that we are instinctively the kinds of creatures that long to sin? Is it our doing or our being that is the problem? And whose fault is it that our rebellion against God has made us that kind of creature?

Plugging all that in, what's your question?

BUT 'you' have NOT 'plugged' ANY 'thing' IN here OTHER than just some of 'your' OWN VERY TWISTED and DISTORTED views here.

[Will Bouwman]

I don't understand how you can claim that we are a supreme being's most cherished creation, a sort of mini me made in his own image,...

Wait.

You'd maybe better do some investigation of what "made in the image of God" potentially means.

In the UK, religious education remains a compulsory subject and was taken seriously in the schools I attended. I voluntarily took philosophy of religion as a module for my first degree, because I fully appreciated the influence religion has, and has had on how people think and, as I have said, I made a point of reading the Bible. I am well aware of what "made in the image of God" potentially means.

Now, which is worse: that we have sinned, or that we are instinctively the kinds of creatures that long to sin? Is it our doing or our being that is the problem?

Doing. People who think about committing crimes are not a problem in the same way as people who act on those thoughts.

And whose fault is it that our rebellion against God has made us that kind of creature?

Plugging all that in, what's your question?

How is an in utero human being, say at two minutes after conception, at fault for his or her nature?

[Immanuel Can]

I don't understand how you can claim that we are a supreme being's most cherished creation, a sort of mini me made in his own image,...

Wait.

You'd maybe better do some investigation of what "made in the image of God" potentially means.

In the UK, religious education remains a compulsory subject and was taken seriously in the schools I attended. I voluntarily took philosophy of religion as a module for my first degree, because I fully appreciated the influence religion has, and has had on how people think and, as I have said, I made a point of reading the Bible. I am well aware of what "made in the image of God" potentially means.

Then that manifestly puts you ahead of most theologians. For the term remains highly debated, even among theologians.

So I'm interested: what have you concluded that "made in the image of God" entails?

Now, which is worse: that we have sinned, or that we are instinctively the kinds of creatures that long to sin? Is it our doing or our being that is the problem?

Doing. People who think about committing crimes are not a problem in the same way as people who act on those thoughts.

We should say that people who ONLY THINK about committing crimes are not a problem in the same way. Those who THINK AND THEN DO, are manifestly even worse than those who might only DO impulsively.

But when it is found that somebody has done something wicked, we do not merely say, "Well, that's over now." What we do -- and rightly so -- is concern ourselves with the disposition of that person, his character and the likelihood of his future misdeeds, based on his manifested nature. So we don't just worry that he "has murdered," but also that he "is a murderer," and plausibly "a murderer likely to repeat the deed."

I'm intimately familiar (for academic reasons) with the penal system, what some call the "reform" system. And I can tell you that it contains two types of tenants: one is the criminally-minded, and the other is the not-criminally-minded.

Just for your interest, let me expound the difference, if I may. (If you know this already, please ignore it.) The non-criminally-minded are those who ended up in jail by incident or accident. A man might even have killed his wife; but he did not premeditate it. She attacked him, and he pushed her; she fell, hit her head and died. He's a murderer. But he neither wanted to kill her, nor planned to do so. His character was quite otherwise, but he was caught up in an unfortunate situation, and he did indeed end up killing her. (This is a real case; I assure you, it happened.) The criminally-minded, by contrast, would be exemplified by the gang leader. He went to jail for plotting and executing drug deals. He has contempt for the system, indifference to his many victims, and a determination to repeat his offense as soon as he is no longer incarcerated. His character is bad. He cannot be rehabilitated except by miraculous means. And every penal officer knows the distinction between those two types of inmates.

So which is the real issue of sin: the man who did the more violent act, or the character of the man who cannot wait to repeat his offence?

And whose fault is it that our rebellion against God has made us that kind of creature?

Plugging all that in, what's your question?

How is an in utero human being, say at two minutes after conception, at fault for his or her nature?

It depends on what you mean by "fault." If you mean only, "What has she done?" then the answer has to be "Nothing yet." But if you're asking if she has the faulty character already that will guarantee her future criminality, then the answer is "This is a serious problem."

And one more thing needs to be taken into account. If we take the definition of God seriously, then we would have to concede that God is not an entity subject to time. God knows all things, from the beginning to the end, and is not linear-time-bound, as we are. That being so, God knows not only what that child has done but what that child will do -- and not only what that child will do, but even what that child would do, were circumstances provided for it to happen.

And that's the real concern. God's primary aim, we must recall, is relationship. His goal is not the mere approving and condemning of deeds, but the establishing of a dynamic and free love relationship with his human creatures. Given that that is His goal, the question of the character of the human person becomes even more pressing: what kind of a person can enter into a love relationship freely, and one with a holy and righteous God?

And the answer is, a person who is disposed favourably toward sin cannot do so. So God's primary interest is in rescuing that person from who they are, not just what they might do.

To sum up: what is the fault of the child? The fault is one of character, and not yet of action. But the actions are inevitable, given the character. Hence, a solution must be provided, even for the child.

[Impenitent]

How is an in utero human being, say at two minutes after conception, at fault for his or her nature?

aren't all born with "original sin?"

I am not sure if the "original sin" is tagged on the life form at birth, or if it is painted on the being at the moments after conception...

choice?

in the act of abortion is one knowingly condemning another?

-Imp

[Gary Childress]

How is an in utero human being, say at two minutes after conception, at fault for his or her nature?

aren't all born with "original sin?"

-Imp

Have any scientific experiments confirmed this or is this yet another example of backward retards leading us all into existential fantasy land?

Get a grip, people. Those of us who think rationally tend to get nauseated by you.

[Gary Childress]

So I'm interested: what have you concluded that "made in the image of God" entails?

No one knows moron. It's something written in a book by someone who probably heard voices in his head telling him to write what s/he did. If you want I can share some of my experiences of psychosis if it will fascinate you. Maybe you could consider it a "divine revelation".