too funny...language isn't static? Really? Sounds like you understand truthiness

1. truthiness (noun)
1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)


I'll stick with what is widely accepted as the definitions of those words, rather than your personal preference.

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"If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you." -- Billy Wilder

"Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied." -- Otto Von Bismark

i dont get it, firstly how is this authoritarian? I'm suggesting my definition to you guys, clearly you and I are aware of the fact that you can take it or leave it, but don't fault me for attempting to persuade you. Secondly, I don't see the contradiction between things being subjective and being in control. False dichotomy. In fact, in virtue of it being subjective (meaning within the hands of the subject, in this case, myself) it is controllable on a personal level. I don't control other people's vocabulary, if thats what you thought I was implying.

my definition still stands.

sorry to quote myself, i just dont want this one to get skipped

Because I see ardent atheists as nearly as big a threat as fundamentalist.

Atheists who go out and declare "THERE IS NO GOD AND I CAN PROVE IT AND YOU ARE A FOOL FOR BELIEVING IN GOD" are more destructive than helpful to the cause. First because the statement has a contradiction in it (you can't "prove" a negative, you can merely point out that given the lack of evidence a reasonable person would conclude it is a negative - so in short they are saying "I accept on faith that there is no faith"). That is so painfully stupid that even the dumbest fundie can pick it apart.

Second, ardent atheists alienate a large segment of nonjudgmental people who believe in religion. I have found that most religious people when I explain that I respect their position, have no issues understanding my position. This doesn't mean that we agree, or that they still don't think I am going to hell, but most are perfectly willing to co-exist with me, and that is the end goal.

Finally, ardent atheists make it harder for people to accept scientific fact and encourages people to go to the extreme to defend their faith. There is NO conflict between evolution and god, but ardent atheists and fundies made it a conflict. Because of the screeching on both sides, the majority of reasonable are afraid of taking sides. And because most people are believers, this has hurt the spread of science. All bad things. If we remove the conflict, it makes accepting science easier.

So in short, as I once said: "save me from my allies, my enemies I can deal with". In any debate, there are always people on your own side that sabotage your argument, not through intention but because they are so strident and illogical in their rhetoric. The first thing one has to do in most debates is to silence the fools on one’s own side before attacking the other. This is why we need the distinction.

If language is subjective (which I disagree with), then my definition is as valid as yours, and the fact that you are even trying to impose yours is a sign of authoritarianism. Now, since language isn't subjective, that words do pretty much mean how they are defined (any argument is small compared to the definition. You can argue about shading, but not the fundamental essence of the word), you are not being authoritarian. However if it IS truly subjective it is.

As for being in control with subjectivity. How would you measure? In order to demonstrate control you have to have some sort of objective measure to show that you are in control, but I am not. If words are purely subjective then everyone is equally as in control of their language because of this subjectivity. It really is all subjective. Now I may not be in control according to your subjectivity, but the reverse is equally true. But since words do have objective meaning, control is possible, because one definition usually (not always) is better than anothers definition.

Well reasoned, and stated quite clear.

Kudos T/S.

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A Liberal is a Man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel (Robert Frost 1874-1963).

Those that will their lives over to something intangible and prays every night to tales from a book 2000 years old I would call cowards. God is an enabler, not and intervention. He gives you strength to carry on the fight for a just cause.

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"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." Thomas Jefferson

"The conservative movement has been hijacked and turned into a globalist, interventionist, open borders ideology, which is not the conservative movement I grew up with." Pat Buchanan

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
Thomas Jefferson

"Agnostics are pussies"

Still funny.

My ancestors and I have been captive to - and killed, tormented, and tortured by - the fascistic followers of a misanthropic foreign philosophy, that psychotically focuses on nothing but human fucking and sucking up to a certifiably criminally insane mythological Jewish deity, for millenia.

What is the politically correct word for someone who wants to keep hitting his hereditary persecutors with a ball of their own insane, sanctinonious shit. In the increasingly forlorn hope the will eventually see what insufferable arseholes they are, and improve their abysmally low self-esteem by some other legitimate means?

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"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." - John Maynard Keynes