Kiyoat Husker

Yup, as well as drug-dealing rapists. That's what I am told, anyway, so it must be true.

What he said^^^^

It it wasn't an estimation. It was the US Census. I'm sure there is a little grey area because it is based on people self-reporting race, but there are literally millions of data points they are basing it on. On the other hand, I'd say your observations qualify as anecdotal. Tiny sampling point, and the way someone looks is not a reliable predictor of race or ethnicity. Tan caucasians can look Hispanic, and there are plenty of latinos that are whiter in color than the average Nebraskan.

So, instead of MAGA, his 2020 campaign would be NIMBY?

I would also add that Republicans are really shooting themselves in the foot with regard to racial and national xenophobia. Hispanics as a group have shown voting patterns that are as diverse as they are. Many hispanics in America are very socially conservative, but will never support a guy like Trump, for obvious reasons. The increase in Hispanic demographics in America don't have to hurt the Conservatives, if they could just drop the whole racism thing. IMO

Although I am very anti gerrymandering, I have to call you out on this statement as a gross over-generalization based on limited experience. This is the kind of thing I hate in political arguments, where someone discredits data based on personal observations. i know you didn't mean anything by it, but I just thought I would mention it. I would guess that large urban areas in Texas might have a different racial makeup than smaller towns?

Excellent point. To that end, I thought the movie "Unforgiven" did an admirable job of addressing how the glorification of violence can give children an unrealistic view of war, crime, law enforcement, etc. i would add that I don't think that glorification of violence is a new phenomenon, by any means. I'm sure that the first time a young soldier or warrior of any era experienced real killing, it was a shocking thing that burst their bubble based on what they thought based on glorious war stories.

Ha! I thought as much, but I didn't want to be rude. Instead I gave you a snide rebuttal. You're welcome.

You don't have to believe all of the things you mentioned. That is, like, three separate things. You can believe or not believe them in any combination. Further, they are not a prerequisite for belief in extra-terrestrial life. You don't have to just be a Christian or just believe in science. Many of us can do both.

Thanks! Very informative and engaging video! A little more optimistic than the explanation I gave, too.

Just kidding. I didn't want to make too long of a post. So, if you imagine the entire known universe as existing in an area the size of a beach ball, and all of time to exist in about five minutes, how long would the existence of earth's humans take? We as a species won't exist forever. At some point we will die off. 5,000 more years? A billion? Either way our existence could be represented in time like this: (he snaps his fingers). Now imagine another intelligent society over here,... *points inside the imaginary beach ball* then he snaps again. And now here *snap*, and here, *snap*, and here *snap*, et cetera. The point is that even if many many different intelligent species evolve in the universe, it is so vast both in space AND time, that the odds of encountering each other are still extremely low. Many intelligent societies on other planets have probably already come and gone before we even existed as a species, and many will likely exist long after we are gone. kind of a lonely thing, right?

I heard something on public radio a couple of days ago that relates to the UFO thing. It was a performer that was playing music while telling a story about his Russian astrophysicist drinking buddy. In the story he asked his Russian friend if he thought extra-terrestrial intelligent life exists, and if so, why haven't they contacted us. He said the first question is easy. Yes, there are too many opportunities for life to have evolved on other planets for intelligent life to NOT have happened elsewhere. Probably many, many times. To answer the second question he had to use an analogy... I'll have to finish the story tomorrow.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/07/on-abortion-persistent-divides-between-and-within-the-two-parties-2/ Actually there is more diversity than you may think, despite the party's best efforts. Here is a Pew Research Poll from July of this year that shows 54% of moderate Republicans believe abortions should be legal in all/most cases. Even 27% of self-identifying "conservative" Republicans believe that. 61% of moderate Democrats and 91% of liberal Democrats also believe in legal abortions. So there is more diversity within the party on this issue than between moderates of both parties. Sounds pretty diverse to me. Maybe the rhetoric is failing to polarize the average American, mainly riling up those that are more passionate about it?

Christian: yes. Afterlife: yes. paranormal: no. I can see the hypocrisy in that set of beliefs, but that doesn't change my belief. I also find it odd that we "mainline" protestants generally don't talk much about faith healing, raising the dead and exorcisms, even though the bible talks about the apostles performing such acts. The assumption is that Jesus and the Apostles were special, and nothing like that would happen now. I don't believe in faith healers, but there is a literal biblical precedent.

This, I think is the crux of the issue. It has become politicized and entrenched with rhetoric as an ideological divide. A way to demonize the "other" group as either unconscionable baby killers, or proponents of a Right-wing Christian theocracy. Of course, neither side fits that description very well.

Black = Option 1 (not legal) Red = Option 2 (mother's life only) Orange = Option 3 (mother's life /health) Brown = Option 4 (mother's life/health or rape/incest) Yellow = Option 5 (life/health/rape/ or fetal defects) Green = Option 6 (life/health/rape/defects/ or socio-economic factors) Blue = Option 7 (legal)

Why not look at the most polarizing topic first? There are other ways of looking at Abortion legality, like trimester, contraceptives, planned parenthood, etc. But I thought I would just get down to brass tacks. What do you believe should be legal? These categories align with how the United Nations defined national abortion law categories in this 2013 report: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/policy/WorldAbortionPolicies2013/WorldAbortionPolicies2013_WallChart.pdf What I find interesting is how other developed and developing countries compare to the United States. Wikipedia has a nice sort-able spreadsheet and map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#cite_note-UN2013info-1

Wow! I didn't know if this thread would take off, but it sure has been some interesting (and civil) discourse. When I started the poll, I initially thought "Am I giving too many choices?" but as it turns out, people are landing all over the map in this "belief spectrum". As it should be. It makes me wonder where people would land in other topics that have been "polarized" by politics in America. Abortion? Gay marriage/rights/equality? Gun ownership? Environment/pollution? Military spending/deployment? Media bias/Fake news/Propaganda? I think that the tribalism of polarized politics has done harm to the naturally diverse "spectrum" of people's personal beliefs. I blame the 2-party dominated system we have in this country.

You may want to compare any projections to the 2017 team rankings instead of the current ones. Other teams are constantly improving their classes, too. It's like chasing a moving target.

I have always been fascinated with the Unitarian Universalist Church, but have not researched it fully. This is how I understand it: There are Unitarian Christians (believe in one god, not the trinity), Universalist Christians (believe in non-exclusive salvation, all humans will reunite with God after death, no hell), and then there is the Unitarian Universalist Church (open to diverse belief systems and religious traditions). While I will probably always stay ELCA Lutheran, I like the idea that people in other religions shouldn't be condemned to hell just for existing in a different culture with a different religion. Forced conversion doesn't seem to jive with Jesus's message to me. The UU church will probably always interest me, but is too far outside my comfort zone. I can believe what I want to believe, though, regardless of church affiliation.

That's not technically true. According to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_mythology The Islamic creation story is scattered through several books, rather than in one place, like Genesis. The story is very similar, though, and obviously evolved from the same source. Here is something I found very interesting: So, a "day" in the Qur'an can literally mean an era of thousands of years, The earth went through a gaseous phase before forming into a planet, and the earth was inhabited by other creatures before man was created. Sounds a lot like how we now understand planet formation and early Hominids, at least to my biased mind.

Hijack away, it's just discussion. I find it quite interesting. I was just being turd, and pointing out that God rested on the seventh day, so the world was created in six days.

6 days. Carry on...

Since you like "The Hill" here's an article (not an op-ed) written at the same time as that op-ed: http://thehill.com/latino/324607-reports-find-that-immigrants-commit-less-crime-than-us-born-citizens And an in-depth study from the prominent Libretarian think-tank, The Cato Institute: https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/immigration_brief-1.pdf A comprehensive review of academic research involving immigrants and crime: https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-says All of them say the same thing - The immigrant and illegal immigrant crime rate is significantly lower than the general population crime rate. Same with the incarceration rate.

Here is the source in the opinion article that this author bases all of his numbers and assumptions on statistically: Because of this one single data set, all of the crimes are disproportionally amplified. Like this statement: According to this Pew Research Center article on the same data set, there are very specific reasons why 50% of federal crimes in 2014 were committed on the Mexican border: Read the article, if you care to. It's easy to bend statistics when you have an agenda. op-eds aren't the best place to look for good data. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/10/immigration-offenses-make-up-a-growing-share-of-federal-arrests/