Man, I leave for a week...

Several Anonymous posters: C'mon guys, you really need to give Ulrich a break. Yeah, Ulrich has some pretty extreme views of the world. Heck, he said in his opinion that even he thinks he's crazy sometimes. I don't think he has the whole world figured out yet, but then, I doubt ANYONE has the whole world figured out, no matter what their age. And for what it's worth, I think he is pretty mature for his age; crazy ideas don't necessarily mean immaturity, and I've had to deal with immature 16-year-olds, heh.

Demian: See above, also, I'd imagine that it's corrupt because it's Ulrich's opinion that it's corrupt. What is and isn't corrupt is sometimes a matter of opinion based on your belief system (I'd wager that many followers of quite a few religions have a differing opinion on it than say, some atheists NOT THAT ALL OF THEM THINK THAT WAY just sayin') Your opinion of it might not be the same as his; I believe that defining corruption leads back to defining things like morals and what is "right and normal", and that sort of thing can be argued 'til Doomsday without any sort of agreement being reached. Like most "debates" on the Internet, people are usually going to have to end up agreeing to disagree. I'd guess that very few people came into this thread expecting to have their worldview changed, hehe.

Ulrich: Might want to turn down the personal acid a bit. Whether or not you think they're ignorant or corrupt or whatever for putting down your views is irrelevant; calling them that to their face is just going to provoke them to fire back even more. Gotta be willing to turn the other cheek and all. Making a general statement about humanity is one thing, because I can, for example, assume you're talking about people other than me. Things like "you people are uncompromising pretentious human beings" though, well, nobody's going to want to hear what you have to say with those kind of words.

And now I've made one of the longest posts yet and haven't said one thing about love or even lust. Okay, here we go: personally, I don't think hormone-driven desires in themselves are corrupt. I think that overindulgence in those desires is where corruption comes from. Drinking too much alcohol will destroy your liver, but a little wine now and again is okay. Of course, no one says you have to drink at all (I don't), but I have friends who do so responsibly, and I don't see a problem with it. In the same way, sex in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but being addicted to porn or having one-night stands every week can be pretty detrimental to your mental and even physical health in the long run. Of course, the hard part is determining what's "acceptable", and that's where a lot of the opinions and agreeing-to-disagree happen. Really, the same could be said of love, or at least, affection. Not always good to get super-clingy and singularly-focused on one person, you know?

Anywho, I need to get going so I guess I'll finish up here. I don't agree with everything he says, but I think he got it right on this one: "I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine." - Bertrand Russell