How many Muslims have you spent time around?

[Foil]

When questioning someone's motives, I've always found it better / faster to simply ask, rather than speculate.

[callmeslick]

words to live by.....of course, certain parties will always claim your explanation is a lie.

[sigma]

I'm just fascinated by the stupidity of Americans. First they stir stick Muslim or Russian or Ukrainian anthill, and then they resent that ants have become evil and begin to bite them. Stupid bitches

[callmeslick]

how's that economy working out, sigma? And, what did any of your post have to do with the topic being discussed in this thread.

[sigma]

Expand your thinking. Sometimes I have the impression that the American people want one thing and the government the United States is doing quite the opposite. And these ★■◆●ing bitches blame for the fact that I must hate all Americans. This is the same as if a few Muslim terrorists to commit terrorist acts in the United States, Americans are beginning to discuss what is dangerous Islam and all Muslims are potential terrorists.

[Sergeant Thorne]

words to live by.....of course, certain parties will always claim your explanation is a lie.

And we don't like those people, because we know that whenever you take the initiative to ask a question you can rely on the honesty of the answer...

I must live in a different part of the world, Foil, because I've always found that most people are liars until you put them in an environment where it's convenient to tell the truth... Or unless their desire to think of themselves as honest overrides the perceived suffering of revealing a truth that does not speak well of their motives.

[vision]

...I've always found that most people are liars until you put them in an environment where it's convenient to tell the truth...

Wow, that is sad. I'm sorry you look at the world that way. Most people are good and want to do good.

[Sergeant Thorne]

It's not sad, and it's not unrealistic. I am not a sad human-being, but I look at the world through much clearer lenses. Most people are mush-brains, and what they call doing good is not so good. Let's end world hunger! Most people like to think of themselves as good, and this is the motivating factor. I'll make a statement directly relating to that: people like to speak of Jesus in positive terms as a historical figure, even if they're not Christian, but if Jesus walked the earth people would hate him today as they hated him then, because people cannot think of themselves as good when there is someone present who's very presence reveals that they are not.

[vision]

Man, you have some distorted views of the world. Evil everywhere!

[callmeslick]

lookee there!

[Krom]

Man, you have some distorted views of the world. Evil everywhere!

Well, that is the cornerstone of most religion: Good is deliberately impossible to define, so everything is Evil.

[Tunnelcat]

Man, you have some distorted views of the world. Evil everywhere!

Well, that is the cornerstone of most religion: Good is deliberately impossible to define, so everything is Evil.

Which means that humans are inherently pessimistic.

[callmeslick]

actual, the idea than mankind is inherently evil is the cornerstone of conservative thought, by the original definitions from the 19th and 18th century founders of political thought. Liberal/romantic thinkers such as Rousseau felt the opposite, reflected in utopian theory.

[Spidey]

Well, they were both wrong, good and evil exist in all people.

[callmeslick]

Well, they were both wrong, good and evil exist in all people.

agreed. Staking out theories, as Burke, Locke, Rousseau and others did, based on absolutes, brings extreme, unrealistic solutions. In Lockes case, a support of tyrannical monarchy, and Rousseau in utopian visions.