^This. We exist, biologically, to procreate and spread our genes as far as possible, protect and nurture our young, and kill those who would threaten them. Biologically speaking, that is. In a more human sense, I feel that we exist to contribute something to the sum total of human knowledge and experience. There may not be a god watching us and guiding our lives, so we have to provide our own meaning, and for me, that is to improve the world in some small way.
Yes, but the Pope and his merry band of editors changed the Bible in many ways during the Middle Ages to attract more people - and many of those changes changed the holy days to coincide with many pagan festivals (like the Solstices, for instance). This is a widely known fact, even among Christians. He was referring to the saints and Mary, I believe. I don't claim to know everything about Catholicism, especially because I wasn't raised Catholic, but I do know a bit, so maybe I can clear things up.
Blame the Medieval Catholic church for that. They re-wrote sections of the Bible and arbitrarily set dates to coincide with pagan holidays so that A) they could say "oh, look how many people are celebrating Christmas/Easter/etc" and B) so the "pagans and heathens" would feel more comfortable about converting.
Nothing happened precisely on my date of birth, but some cool things happened on March 23... 1903 Wright brothers obtain airplane patent 1912 Dixie Cup invented (lol) 1919 In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement. 1966 First official meeting after 400 years of Catholic & Anglican Church (Really? lol) 1989 2 Utah scientists claim they have produced fusion at room temperature 2001 The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji. (awww)
That's assuming that everyone gets married and has 2.5 kids. Many people, and I'm assuming a large proportion of the people that would be hired for a job like this, don't form many lasting bonds at all. Look at me - I only have two friends that I still keep in contact with, I feel no urge to do anything "social" - dating, etc, I'm not going to get married, and I feel perfectly happy living this lifestyle.
It's different because many people see it as different. Yes, by starting the machine, you're killing someone, but you can choose to see it as merely a job, especially if you don't look at the criminal as he is dying. It would still take someone without a great deal of empathy and a hardness of emotion, but it would be more humane to the executioner than personally doing the killing. (and no, I don't particularly care how humane it is to the criminal.)
That's why I use adblock Pro. It blocks just about everything. On topic, though, Youtube has really gone down the shitter lately, hasn't it? New profiles (which I switched to only because I know they'll make me sooner or later), loss of bulletins, copynazism, ads fricking EVERYWHERE... Find me a site that is like Youtube was about a year ago, and I'll switch in a heartbeat.
Why does a person have to do the execution at all? Make it fully automated - a human straps a criminal down, and a machine executes them in whatever way the state deems fit.
My best friend back home was a pagan for a while (or at least, he thought he was - he's been going through some pretty weird stuff lately), and one of my classmates here at college is a practicing Wiccan (part of the whole paganism ideology). I am also slightly knowledgeable about it myself, as I am going into a field in Archaeology, and have taken several courses in ancient cultures practicing some form of paganism.
Actually, a lot of times you can be sure. Most if not all of the faulty DNA evidence being found is from 20 years ago, when DNA testing was in it's infancy. It's much more developed now, and, provided the forensics team isn't corrupt or some bullshit like that, pretty much infallible.
Even then, it's better than paying the many thousands of dollars it takes to keep a prisoner in jail for life.
Also, not to be too practical, but it's a lot less costly to the taxpayers to execute a criminal, rather than have him live in prison for the rest of his life, no matter how bad/good it is, at the taxpayer's expense. As I keep saying - the end result is the same - he dies in prison.
I know. I mean, when you violate others' rights, why should you get to keep any but the most basic of your own? Why should you be entitled to comfort, if you took a sniper rifle to 5 people's heads, or went on a rape spree? I'll say what I said before - lock most, if not all, criminals up in a small concrete cell with a food slot in the door, a metal bed without a mattress, a toilet, and a small slit of a window. let em out into a yard where they can stretch for maybe an hour a day at most. Give 'em bland, tasteless food and simple water for sustenance. That's all they get.
Two problems: 1) Prison is no longer a life of pain and suffering. the prisoners get padded beds, free time in a yard, and cable television, along with numerous other comforts. 2) Life imprisonment is ridiculously expensive, and it's the taxpayers who eventually end up paying to keep serial killers and rapists alive. It's much cheaper to simply execute them. Now, if both of these problems can be resolved, then and only then will I condemn the death penalty.
The point of capital punishment, in my mind, is not as a deterrent, it's to keep the dangerous homicidal maniacs, terrorists, serial rapists, etc off the streets and stop them from hurting any more people ever again while not spending a fortune on their cushy prison sentences. It's more expensive to keep someone in a modern prison for life than it is to kill them, and the outcome is the same - they die in prison. And surely your not suggesting that they let the most dangerous criminals in the country out of prison, so they can just pick up where they left off?
I assumed he meant the torture of what prison should be - a bare cell with minimal interaction with others. Unfortunately, prison is a pretty sweet ride right now, especially for the lower classes.
Anyone else see echoes of religious fundamentalism/extremism here? These people seem to be taking a book/movie franchise and turning it into a religious experience that will get you damned if you don't obsess over it. Ironically, their devotion makes the whole franchise even more unpalatable. Anything with that devoted a fanbase can't be healthy; even more so when it's purely a work of fiction.
That... would be quite something. If they could prove their "theory", it could prove the key to time travel itself. Of course, it's more conjecture than theory at this point, but that is where most theories begin... Of course, most likely it's not true, and until I see evidence, I'm understandably reluctant to believe this, but then again...
No prison is completely secure. Someone can always find a way to escape. As for convicting innocents, DNA evidence has come a long way in the last 20 years. All the stories you hear about DNA evidence being overturned - they're all from the early days of DNA studies. I would say that in the next few years, the amount of false positives will doubtlessly be drastically reduced.
How does this sound: When the government or some private agency finally gets around to funding a base or supply station or colony on the moon (and it will happen, mark my words), those tiny ice particles could offset the cost of maintaining it by billions of dollars a year. Is that worth it? Hell yes. The same goes for Mars, where they recently found deposits of water beneath the surface, due to an asteroid collision. Also, if we find water on the moon, the closest celestial body to our own, it means the odds of finding it elsewhere in the solar system and the universe at large go way up, and therefore, the odds of finding life like that of our planet go way up as well. The logic is: if water exists in many places in our solar system, it's probably a pretty common feature of most systems in the universe. Since our kind of life depends on water, we are likely to find it where there is water. Since water is so common, life may also be more common than originally thought. That answer your question?
