Japanese is a language I have on the burner to learn. I have had a full course on it for years but never got around to getting beyond basic greetings.

After I am done learning Greek, I am going to refresh and learn more French, and then Japanese is next because I love Anime and Manga and want to watch/read it as it should be.

What made you decide to learn Portuguese?

That is one of the harder things I have noticed about learning language in general. There is always a clear difference between how a language “should be spoken” and how it actually is in practice with native speakers.

What got you interested in Mandarin?

I found the alphabet and grammar easy to understand personally, which is why I am able to read before I can do basically anything else.

Greek is spoken in Greece and numerous other countries because of the Greek diasporas in the world.

Coming from a Greek family, while the locals may speak English they generally prefer to and appreciate speaking in Greek especially in Greece.

Thank you for the well wishes.

You should try forming a point of view of your own before attempting conversation in a very nuanced subject.

I am not and have never denied the fact that the Israeli Government is full of bad people.

I can pull just as many quotes from the other side of the conflict, and the point would be just as moot.

The rhetoric is extremist and wrong, those speaking it are wrong, and every single person responsible for what is happening should be brought to justice.

Is that clear enough for you? Probably not.

Define “they”.

The simple fact that under international law a state has a right to territorial integrity and safety from aggressive actions means that a state has a right to exist within their borders under international law.

You are free to elaborate at any time on your point of view.

A right to territorial integrity and to not be attacked is literally the right to exist.

Zionism is a fascist ideology based upon building an ethno nation states wherein those of other ethnicities are expelled or exterminated.

Why do other ethnic and religious groups exist in modern day Israel if they were all supposed to be expelled or exterminated?

Not arguing against the fact that Israel doesn’t have equal rights for everyone. Arguing against the other person assertion that everyone was expelled or exterminated.

Your disregarding the point.

It’s interesting you would make this point, since there is no right to for a given state to exist in international law. There’s a right to self determination. But that is not the same thing.

Considering it is International law that grants the states existence in the first place, I would say that is a moot point.

How can one become an expert on living forever without first living forever?

If I agree with their point, again, I don’t care if I later find reasons or points to disagree on something different. It will not make me waste my time adjusting upvotes. Common ground is very important.

No because when I upvote someone it usually means I agree with their point. Disagreeing later doesn’t change the initial agreement.

Capitalists lose under both Socialism and Fascism. Neither Political structure benefits a pure Capitalist because both systems impose heavy regulation on the free market which is anti Capitalist.

Capitalism and Fascism do not work together. Capitalism and Socialism do not work together.

The prior because Fascists impose heavy regulation on the markets to benefit themselves, and the latter because Socialism is a Socioeconomic ideology which replaces the need for Capitalism within it.

I don’t need to ignore any facts about communism or socialism because I didn’t bring them up and they are immaterial to this conversation. I don’t know why you even brought that up here.

I bring it up because that is what you responded to originally.

Its a very complex topic, but honestly also self evident if you look around. The successful EU/Scandinavian countries who are “capitalist” are also falling into fascism as we speak. The only reason they held it off so long was laws that inhibit capitalism from doing as much damage as it wants to.

What system do you propose?

The system of capitalism encourages (almost demands) antisocial, sociopathic behaviour to emerge. The ultimate result of this is always the same.

This is too big of a topic to start an explanation from scratch in this thread. But it’s also something that is very well discussed online and written about a lot. This isn’t my idea personally.

Assuming I am unread instead of engaging me on the topic does not make a good faith argument against what I have said.

Parties fail because in order to be a member of the party you must believe in the parties ideas and policies, which in turn leads to a homogenization of ideas. Over time those ideas get more entrenched on the different sides, leading to less collaboration over time and more extreme and divided rhetoric that benefits no one.

I would say that the entire idea is rotten because of that.

No, I am saying you are wrong. No one else.

You.

The saddest, and funniest, part is that you are so egotistical that you don’t see why you are wrong.

Maybe you will get it one day, but I won’t be there for it.

Self reflection is good.

It seems that in the end it’s one of two things… There’s what’s known as the Epicurean paradox or the problem of evil, where the confusion arises from many sources: forgetting about the existence of free will and the causal chain of events, semantic nonsense or even simple immaturity. This is the one that’s just all fluff, all wind, but words can kick one’s ass, especially if you live more in words than in reality.

I am assuming we are speaking about the Christian God in this context.

God is all knowing, and omnipresent. This means that God knows in advance the result of it’s own decisions.

If God granted free will to humans knowing that humans would commit horrible acts with it against each other, how can that God be considered benevolent?

And then there’s the one that I respect a little bit more: while the beginning of the causal chain that we can conceive (so, embedded in/attached to space and time) is evidently not a source of it, but also since things exist today we can’t deny the ‘proto-thing’ existed then I can somewhat accept you telling me that this essence we call matter and energy was always there and God is not necessary and etc etc. God has been understood for millennia as the ‘prime engine’ and unmoved mover, behind the universe and before it, the One that ‘comes from nothing’ that we have to accept because nothing comes from nothing and things exist. But many folk just skip that part and say “things exist, that’s all I can see and that’s all I will believe in”. That’s fair, but I better not see you making any logical inferences then, lol.

The question remains both Theologically and Scientifically unanswered: If “nothing” can come from “nothing”, where did the “thing” that created “everything” come from?

If we accept the Big Bang or Creationism as two theories explaining the same event from a different point of view, what was existence prior to that? Did God simply exist in infinite nothingness up until the point of creation? Wouldn’t the existence of God contradict “nothingness” simply by existing?