Hot Topics, v. 2007.5
For discussions that need to be handled with care. No flaming, please.
Continued from v. 2007.4.
Date: June 7, 2007
Categories: Life, The Universe
Comments RSS TrackBack 401 comments
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BiblioRose
in June 7th, 2007 @ 11:17I don’t know what to talk about. Could this be my first post? Where does everyone get there sources for news?
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'Dotty-kay
in June 7th, 2007 @ 11:22Just letting you know, the old HT thread is still linked on “Don’t Forget These Threads”.
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E2MB
in June 7th, 2007 @ 11:54Whoa! At this rate, there will be 10 Hot Topics threads threads this year, if not 11! Apparently MuseBloggers know where to talk about things they want to talk about.
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jammin j
in June 7th, 2007 @ 13:51what are youse gonna talk about dis time around? how about why in heck the world is still retaining its nuclear weapons? sorry, but i am obseesed with this now cause i’m reading about the Ambio study on Nuclear War. very interesting and well, depressing. i hate the very idea of nuclear war now.
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Shadowkat
in June 7th, 2007 @ 14:36Robert on previous thread–Shocking, I know…it’s, like, a whole new concept…lol.
Alright people, we need something to argue about! Ideas? (Haha…we get a new thread, and all of a sudden, the topic on the old one is dead…mwahaha…)
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 7th, 2007 @ 15:12metalheads rage against the machine. hippies whine against the machine.
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moca
in June 7th, 2007 @ 15:13so everyone….whats up? and whats the hot topic?
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rabbity24
in June 7th, 2007 @ 15:15I think we should talk about the fact that they still keep diseases in Georgia and Russia that if they decide to start a war they could spread those and kill everyone!
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 7th, 2007 @ 15:26Russia? ‘keeps’ diseases? The russians have enough diseases of their own.
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Traggle/RavenHawk/Rubea Hawken
in June 7th, 2007 @ 15:28I think we should talk about nuclear weapons. I like that idea since we just finished learning about the Cold War in World History.
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Beavo the Great
in June 7th, 2007 @ 16:01I think post 0 on these Hot Topics thread should have what ‘Hot Topic’ we’re talking about, like the IMC thread.
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Vendaval
in June 7th, 2007 @ 16:37well, continuing from #4, there’s iraq, and wmds. I think the US is so hipocrytical aboout wmds, seeing as we have plenty.
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Shadowkat
in June 7th, 2007 @ 16:43Well, frankly, even if other countries have WMD’s, unless they’re threatening us, what business is it of ours?
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E2MB
in June 7th, 2007 @ 16:5413 – Yea. We ourselves keep more than enough to blow up the earth!
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Donaldo the supercoolio nerd
in June 7th, 2007 @ 18:58Great. A new one? Exactly what we need. Cause more flames.
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Donaldo the supercoolio nerd
in June 7th, 2007 @ 19:069-LOL. Wait a second… Did I just do an LOL to Fridgy’s post? OMG!
13-Good point. Very good point. One problem though: The terrorists didn’t threaten us on 9/11. They just did it. They might not threaten us at all, but just do it instead. I am not taking any sides, nor am I disagreeing with you. Just pointing that out.
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E2MB
in June 7th, 2007 @ 19:0815 – Whatever happened to your “awesome”?
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biblioRose
in June 7th, 2007 @ 19:14Hmmmm….. The best way (Iv’e found) is to state your opinion than let everyone disagree about it. This isn’t really a hot topic, but what are your opinions on bringining up things from the titanic. They will all detereorate ( I know I spelled that wrong) eventually. I think they should definitly bring up things becasue of the education and history it provides. Comments?
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cellogirl26
in June 7th, 2007 @ 20:17What about the dude from Canada who had drug-resistant tiberculoses (sp.??). They advised him not to fly on a commercial flight, but he did anyway. Then he said uh, they just advised me to, they didn’t order me.
And don’t even get me started on the Iraq war. It is SO STUPID. We aren’t even FIGHTING with Iraq. We are fighting with the TERRORISTS. We are killing innocent men just because our president is too STUPID to realize that.
Anyway, if anyone agrees or disagrees, feel free to tell me.
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cellogirl26
in June 7th, 2007 @ 20:18Darn. I just realized that that post was kind of flaming. Sorry about that.
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Donaldo the supercoolio nerd
in June 7th, 2007 @ 20:3620-Perfectly OK.
17-What happened? I will tell you. I got tired of arguing.
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Alice
in June 7th, 2007 @ 20:4219- Tuberculosis.
Yes, I will come on even this thread to correct spelling. Sorry (not really).
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biblioRose
in June 7th, 2007 @ 20:46I agree it is a pointless war. I thonk most of us can agree on that. Will anyone respnd to my post?
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Beavo the Great
in June 7th, 2007 @ 21:0819-Aggreement. Actually, Cheney is manipulating Bush to start the war. Did you know Bush’s [insert any number of ‘greats’] grandfather was a major benifactor to our worst facist yet… Hitler?
22-The mind that only containes one spelling for each word, is a narrow mind.
Not Really.
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E2MB
in June 7th, 2007 @ 22:1018 – Yes…..preserve it.
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pen,/ta/to'/nikk (adj)
in June 8th, 2007 @ 00:4224 (Beavo)- What does it matter what Bush’s grandfather did?
I’m not for the war, or Bush, but let’s be sensible here.
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Shadowkat
in June 8th, 2007 @ 08:2418-Oh, most definitely! I, personally, would find the whole thing fascinating. Why wouldn’t anyone want to preserve what’s down there?
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Vendaval
in June 8th, 2007 @ 14:41It’s really expensive. the last time they tried, they did bring up 5,000 artifacts though.
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Shadowkat
in June 8th, 2007 @ 15:5828-Well, yeah, but I’m sure they can manage it…stop spending so much money on public schools, for example.
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Beavo the Great
in June 8th, 2007 @ 16:0726-Oh nothing, just a random factoid. But it seems that Bush is following in his grandfather’s steps. Please don’t make me explain what I mean.
18-The Titanic? I think it’s all very interesting what would be on a huge ship at the time it sunk. Especially one that was supposedly ‘unsinkable’.
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biblioRose
in June 8th, 2007 @ 16:12In regards to the titanic I think a lot of people see it as a burial ground of sorts and think it should be left alone out of respect for the dead. I disagree. By preserving those things it’s a tribute to them.
29- Ha,ha! I think that they give a reasonable amount just the schools don’t always spend it wisely. For example my other school had about 5 dozen rubber chickens that we used in P.E but not one baseball, wooden bat, or other commonplace sports equipment!
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Elizabeth
in June 8th, 2007 @ 16:5524- ya, his name was Prescott Bush, and it wasn’t that many “greats” ago. He was the one that refused to let the Jews come into our country before WW2, if he had let the jews come (or at least some of them) the Holocaust wouldn’t have been so bad. Hitler did ask the jews to leave before he went and killed them.
26- like father, like son it’s not that one fact that matters so much, just that fact that that man must have influenced his son in what to think and do, and it would have gone down through the generations like that so eventually this Bush would have a part of that mind-set
29- after 9/11 the US spent $34 billion on public schools a year and $399 billion on the war… I don’t think schools are where we need to stop spending money. If we stopped giving money to schools, the US would have a very dumb (even dunber than now) population, then we’d be screwed.
30- I hope that might be kind of what you mean (?)
31- I agree with that about the schools, only I’m not sure rubber chickens cost a whole lot…
our school built us a new football field for 3 MILLION dollars. It’s just like the old one only it has astro-turf so it costs a lot more to take care of and when birds poop on it, the poop stays until it is cleaned off…at the same time we have spots on our walls where the tiles have fallen off and haven’t been replaced and lights have been broken and replaced with a different color one, so it goes randomly from yellow lights to whiter ones. AND classes aren’t allowed to take as many field trips as they used to, it’s like, one a year or something. So ya, complete agreement there…stupid school boards.Wow, I haven’t been on one of these threads in a while, I always have something to say.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 8th, 2007 @ 17:4017-Oh. LOL. Nevermind. Here I fixed it. In an earlier post on the other thread, I called this awesome. I thought you were talking about that.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 8th, 2007 @ 17:46Here is part of a report I wrote FOR the war. I don’t mean to start something. I don’t want to, but I am just stating my opinion.
“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`To take the soldiers out of Iraq would surrender everything that we have worked for and gained in Iraq, like a better, more controlled government. Thanks to the American soldiers in Iraq, all Iraqis have equal rights. When Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, was in power, he discriminated against Shiites and Kurds, causing the citizens to distinctly split into two groups and almost cause a civil war. Now that Hussein is out of power, we have helped set up a new government and fair, democratic elections. When Hussein ruled Iraq, he messed with the ballots so he always won. Now, the elections are democratic and the votes are not messed with by anyone. Although these changes have done much good for Iraq, there are still onslaughts of violence all the time in Iraq, especially in big cities like Baghdad. Many Iraqi rebels do not want the new government and will do anything they can to make sure that Hussein’s wickedness lives on in the next rulers of Iraq. By working with the new, elected leaders of Iraq, President Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, are trying to stop the daily acts of terror, and we should support that. Why? We should because of human civil rights. Nobody should have to live in a town where roadside bombings and gunfire are daily events. Can you imagine San Francisco or New York like that? What you imagined is what Baghdad is like. Now can you imagine living in a place like that?
Just about every American remembers September 11th, 2001. About that day, George W. Bush tells the crowd at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C., “We saw the future the terrorist intend for our nation on that fateful day of September the 11th, 2001. That day, we learned that vast oceans and friendly neighbors are no longer enough to protect us.†This is an important part of why we have troops fighting in the Middle East-to keep the war over there so it doesn’t have to be fought over here on American soil. The terrorists attacked us on 9/11 because we weren’t prepared. By fighting this war, we are keeping on our toes and telling the terrorists not to mess with us. Vice President Cheney says, “They’re [the terrorists] convinced that the United States will just pack it in and go home if they just kill enough of us.†If we back off from Iraq, then until the government is more stable, the insurgents could keep planning their vicious acts of terror and we could have another event like 9/11, where three thousand innocent people died.
We have lost over 3,000 soldiers since the start of the war in Iraq. This is a huge part of why many Americans don’t want us to keep fighting this war. Many of those Americans are comparing this war to World War 2 due to the large amount of deaths, but in World War 2, however, we lost 500,000 soldiers and in one battle-the Battle of Normandy-we lost 3,000 soldiers in just one day! Yet we still kept fighting. We didn’t back off. So why are so many people opposed to this war when so many people supported World War 2 which had many, many more civilian and soldier deaths than this one? In 2006, there were1100 homicides Los Angeles County. Also in 2006, there were over 7,000 deaths that occurred because pharmacists prescribed incorrect drugs to their patients. Compared with 3,000 deaths is the war all the bad? Others say that the war is too expensive. All wars are expensive, though. So is running a school. Same with the space program. The annual budget for the California Highway Patrol is just short of a billion dollars. So why do Americans complain about the war being expensive? The Revolutionary War was expensive at the time, but it gave us our freedom, which is exactly what we are doing in Iraq-trying to give Iraqis their well-deserved freedom from the fear-inducing attackers in their land. How much does freedom cost? Ten cents? Ten dollars? Ten million dollars? This war has helped us find out.
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FS, PLEASE don’t make corrections. I just felt like this was good to post. And I KNOW some of you will say none of the terrorists on 9/11 were Iraqis. But take a look at Iraq on a map. It is a major crossing point between many other Middle East countries that DO have terrorists in them.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in June 8th, 2007 @ 18:18(24, 32) Prescott Bush was George W.’s grandfather.
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biblioRose
in June 8th, 2007 @ 19:1324- So? I don’t see how that affect his leadership abbilities.
34- Very intersting….. Lots of good points. The war itself was a pointless thing to start, and backing out now would now not be entirely wise. There has been many positive effects though, and the people of Iraq will thank us for it one day.
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Sobriquet
in June 8th, 2007 @ 19:2334- You don’t want FS to make corrections, but I have something to say.
1. Isn’t it interesting that these car bombs and the huge increase in sectarian violence wasn’t around when Saddam was in power? No, this does not mean I support dictatorships. All I’m saying is that the Iraqi people are not better off because of us.
2. Do you know how many young jihadists we’ve created? Rather than “telling the terrorists not to mess with us,” we’re just fueling their anger. We can’t wait them out. This is a civil war thats been brewing for hundreds if not thousands of years! We’re not making the world any more safe by occupying Iraq, in fact, we’ve probably made the situation ten times worse. If you want to protect the country, tighten national security, don’t go creating more terrorists.
3. Have you met a soldier who has served in Iraq? Why don’t you talk to someone whose been there before you start devaluing their lives.
4. It’s not 10 million dollars. The expected amount spent in Iraq or on things relating to Iraq (passing bills, etc.) by September of this year is $465 billion dollars. Do you know what $465 billion buys? To give you some idea, we only spend about $13 billion on all international aid annually. Google “money spent in Iraq.” Click the link to the New York Times page. They ran an opinion page in 2004 detailing other ways the money could have been spent (and remember, back then we’d only spent $144 billion) Somehow, funding fire and police departments seems like a better deal.
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E2MB
in June 8th, 2007 @ 19:24Wow, donaldo. That is a good report. I never thought of many of your good points.
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E2MB
in June 8th, 2007 @ 19:26To put things in perspective:
The war in iraq has cost about $300 billion.
NASA wants to send a human to Mars. That will cost about $400 billion.
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cellogirl26
in June 8th, 2007 @ 19:4324- I complatly agre.
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Ebeth the Ãœbiquitous Ãœber
in June 8th, 2007 @ 19:50Iraq? this is where i leave yet again. i don’t know why we got in, and i don’t know why we don’t get out.
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Purple Panda
in June 8th, 2007 @ 20:3539 (E2MB) – I think the Iraq war has cost more than that, by now. I think that was the count in January, right? And by the end of the war, it will be over 1 trillion, (that is an estimated amount). Plus, sending a human to Mars would be pretty far in the future (they don’t have the technology yet), and there is actually a point to that, unlike the war. And, war is utterly stupid, and space exploration is not.
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Alice
in June 8th, 2007 @ 20:53The war is bad, bad, bad. I wish we would just surrender, and say, “Well, you can have the oil, we’re going back to horses and boats,” and stop fighting. I really want that, but I know that it won’t happen, because we’re too accursedly proud, and because we’re addicted to our cars.
Having delivered my opinion, I am leaving this thread for good. *bows and exits*
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dark duke of darkness
in June 8th, 2007 @ 21:156-what!?!?!?! insulting hippies is not cool, dude. hippies are teh pwntage. and btw, hippies can be metalheads.
34-“But take a look at Iraq on a map. It is a major crossing point between many other Middle East countries that DO have terrorists in them.”
“so lets bomb the ^&*$ out of their civilians, shall we?”
if i get the gist of what you’re basically saying, it’s that Iraq sucked before we came. it did, didn’t it? but guess what. there are tons of countries that suck. much more than iraq. do we attack them? no. why? for three reasons. one, we wouldnt want to seem too unreasonable (if we attacked north korea, sudan, cambodia, china, iran, and saudi arabia all at once people wouldnt like us. also, we have great economic relationships with two of those countries, so we couldn’t care less about their human rights situatons. two, if we attacked north korea and china, the ensuing nuclear holocaust would not be too appealing. and third, and most importantly, the government really doesnt care about all of that stuff. The government has its own motives. i’m not quite sure what they are, but i suspect they have something to do with the words personal, and gain. What really happened was that there was some pretty bad inteligence saying that there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq. it turned out not to be true. this “democracy” thing is only a justification because the first excuse didnt work. you say 3000 deaths is not that much, and compare it to other ways people die.that is just horrible. justifying people’s death with other people’s death is just wrong. also i would like to point out your hypocrisy on that subject. at first, you say the main reason for all of this is an “event like 9/11, where three thousand innocent people died.” three thousand americans have died. are americans the only humans in your eyes? because of americans, there have been between 61000 and 71203 deaths of innocent people. because of the death of three thousand innocent people. but his is obviously okay, because the three thousand were americans, and therefore better than the iraqis.
you compare this war to world war two. that is also wrong. to compare Hussein and Hitler is impossible. Hussein was simply an oppressive dictator. the world has lots of those. *coughcoughkimjongilcoughcough* Hitler was an opressive dictator who exterminated 12 million people, and wanted to take over the world, in order to exterminate a lot more. 12 million people.
you say that we are fighting a war in the middle east so that it is not fought here. we are not fighting a war, we are mediating a civil war. the war makes the chances of the war being fought here much higher. (if by war, you mean terrorist attack) we are not depleting terrorist’s recourses, we are adding to them.
yes, we should help the iraqis. we should also help the sudanese. but we dont, because it doesnt suit us. that was just a bunch of random thoughts. not too persuasive. oh well.37-dunno who you are, but i agree completely.
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Eccentric the Afterthought
in June 8th, 2007 @ 22:2044 – This is true. I’ve met a metalhead hippie. Interesting guy.
18 – I agree. Yes, it would be an expensive venture, but I think the US could afford it, especially since it’s a more worthwhile cause than a lot of things we’re spending money on now. My city building a huge new football stadium, for instance. I think those several million dollars could have been better spent preserving pieces of a major historical event!
I’m not sure what else the US can do at this point, but I do disagree with the war. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but is the ultimate goal now not only to fight terrorists but also to establish a stable, American-style democracy? If so, I seriously doubt that that will happen. The cultural mindset in these countries is drastically different from America’s and has been for thousands of years. Perhaps I’m being too pessimistic, but it seems to me that the native peoples’ traditional beliefs are so deeply rooted, so much a part of their upbringing, that I really don’t think any amount of force or persuasion from us is going to change them in just a few years.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 9th, 2007 @ 06:4134: Ooh. Yet another brilliant example of american ignorance.
Because Iraq is close to the countries where terrorists DO come from, does that mean that Iraqis are terrorists too? Before WWII, Switzerland was surrounded by Italy, Austria, Germany and France, all countries either fascist or controlled by fascists. But Switzerland was never a fascist nation.
‘Democratic’ elections? Democratic my arse. The US has its hands in the Iraq politics, and controls the outcome.
Iraq was a lot better off before the US invaded. Iraqis themselves felt safer before, under Saddams rule. I’m not trying to defend Saddam, he was a dictator, and a bad one, but the situation has so deteriorated now that Bush stuck his nose in.
Now, as for the death tolls. In WWII, America was fighting against Nazism. Alright? Which is one of the most evil political systems ever to have appeared on the earth. The Allies where fighting against a madman who murdered people for no reason other than their ethnicity. That was a worthwhile fight. That was a battle worth fighting, for ideals, for freedom and for justice. The Iraq war is a battle for Georgies own personal and financial motives.
Invading Iraq does NOT help against terrorism. It’s not fighting the terrorists on their own ground, as the terrorists are not in Iraq, and the arrogant attitude shown by the US has provoked even more anger and raised the terrorism probability.
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Sobriquet
in June 9th, 2007 @ 10:4944- I’m Julieb.
The people, few though they may be, in support of this war, say we cannot get out because chaos will ensue; citing India as an example. The same people who have been wrong every step of the way. I say, now’s just as good a time as any. It’s not like we can wait them out. And as some very rightly pointed out, there are enormous genocides in other countries we haven’t even tried to help (i.e. Sudan). At least under Saddam, people were safe as long as they followed the rules. Now, they might have the guy in front of them at the supermarket be a suicide bomber. Everyone is trying to get out. It’s not like the Iraqi’s are saying “we want a democracy and we’ll do anything to get it.” No, they’re saying “maybe the dictatorship wasn’t so bad.” This is what we’ve done to Iraq.
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biblioRose
in June 9th, 2007 @ 11:1347- No dictatorship is ever a positive thing. Being ruled by another person and living in constant fear without the basic rights we get is never a good thing. I would rather die than be beaten for saying my opinion, or being disrespected because I am female. He was an evil, evil man and hanging him was civil and respectful compared to the way he publicly murdered and humiliated hundreds of inncocent lives. They do not want him back.
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Beavo the Great
in June 9th, 2007 @ 11:20I aggree with people saying that we have to get outta Iraq RIGHT NOW. We can’t wait them out, like Julieb said, but they might wait US out. Now’s as good a time (if not a better time) to hightail it back to North America.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 9th, 2007 @ 12:0648: He was an evil man, but he kept things orderly and running, and as long as you shut up you could walk down Baghdad without ducking every 5 seconds, and school children didn’t have to step over bodies to get to school. That’s what it’s like now. Saddam wasn’t a good leader, but it was a lot safer than it is now. And what gives the US the right to go in and say “this is wrong”? In my mind, Bush is more evil than Saddam was because he started a war for his own personal gain, lied to the country and killed many more people than Saddam did. If anyone should be hanged, it’s Bush.
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Beavo the Great
in June 9th, 2007 @ 15:2750-They should both be at least kicked outta power, but if you kick out Bush, you get Cheney, who is worse!
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 9th, 2007 @ 15:58If Cheney is even worse, you can hang him too. Besides, the impeachment process with all its legal ramifications would use up the rest of his presidency.
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Shadowkat
in June 9th, 2007 @ 16:1031-Just out of curiosity, what use could you possibly have for rubber chickens in P.E.?
32-I was half-kidding about the schools thing…sorry if I offended you.
36-No, they won’t. They’ll hate us for meddling where we shouldn’t have meddled. If they had wanted a new gov’t, they should’ve stood up for themselves and gotten one.
44-Good points. But do you think we should get out of Iraq, then, or what?
50-Hear, hear! But I’ve never liked hanging…I vote for an assassination…and I’m only partially kidding…at this point, it might be inevitable, anyway.
What the Iraqis really need (and us as well) is a good, firm Constitutional Republic. And if the Iraqis had wanted that (or anything other than a dictatorship), they could’ve gotten it themselves.
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Elizabeth
in June 9th, 2007 @ 16:5346- I was reading through this thread and just waiting for you to react, and for once I think I agree with everything in that post. just to add some stuff: America has been “in” Iraq for a long time, before we invaded, we had imposed sanctions which took away the social infrastructure and that’s why Iraq is in such bad shape now (and before we invaded) I think if we’d left them alone the whole time they wouldn’t have a dictatorship anymore. I mean, think about it, almost every country I can think of started out with a monarchy and ended up with a better form of gov’t
53- oh, ok, I wasn’t that mad anyway, but your right that we need to change our spending priorities
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Purple Panda
in June 9th, 2007 @ 18:30I think Iraq was much better with Saddam there. Yes, he did a lot of terrible things, but it was really none of our business, and went in because of a lie. Now, we have completely ruined the entire country, and it is 10 times worse than it already was.
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biblioRose
in June 9th, 2007 @ 19:0755- he murdered innocent people! He was an evil, evil person! I don’t understand how he was a positive thing to that country.
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Beavo the Great
in June 9th, 2007 @ 19:1552-Well, then you have to hang most of the congress, the speaker of the house, and most of the major characters in US policy and law because they all suck. Or most of them. A majority. Some guys really got their act together though. My friend has a father who works for… something…. and he’s actually not that bad.
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biblioRose
in June 9th, 2007 @ 19:3353- We throw them into trash cans while standing on rubber dots. It was dreadful.
57- Just because people don’t like them or they make decisons that aren’t the gtreatest doesn’t mean we can hang them. That is reserved for those few who are evil to the core.
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Alice
in June 9th, 2007 @ 19:3556- For some reason I can’t stay out of an argument, but here ’tis: He wasn’t a positive thing. But we are such an UN-positive thing, that it he seems positive by comparison. And now, farewell.
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Red-tailed HAWK
in June 9th, 2007 @ 19:4857-They just got a new one!
Sorry to jump in here, but there are dozens of countries where innocent people are dying or being killed, and you can’t pick and choose which ones to bring democracy to.
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biblioRose
in June 9th, 2007 @ 19:5459- I like the way you phrased that.
60- No, but why not try? I’m a big fan of helping people. It’s rather cynical to say we shouldn’t help any countries because there will always be another one in need.
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Purple Panda
in June 9th, 2007 @ 19:5856 – Basically what Alice said. I wasn’t saying he was good, but he was WAY better than us. He could actually keep the country under control. We had no business going into Iraq, and now we have just completely torn apart their country. And I know we’re not talking about this really, but we do similar things. We don’t necessarily kill, but we brutally torture and imprison innocent people as well.
57 – I like the speaker of the house. I think she has good ideas.
60 – I completely agree.
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63
Beavo the Great
in June 9th, 2007 @ 20:4258-I’m just saying you can’t hang everyone who has screwed anything up.
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64
dark duke of darkness
in June 9th, 2007 @ 21:0461-because we’re not helping them, we’re attacking them. helping people is a great thing. attacking them…. is not. hopefully you can see the difference.
56- he wasn’t a positive thing. he was a bad thing. but WE are a worse thing. as FS said, at least saddam kept people from killing each other.
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65
Eccentric the Afterthought
in June 9th, 2007 @ 23:52While I definitely don’t think Saddam was a good leader, I also don’t think the US should have interfered with him. If the Iraqis were content, we should have accepted that and kept our noses out of their business. Who put America in charge of everyone? If Iraq’s government was working and the Iraquis were happy with it, I think we should have left it alone.
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66
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 10th, 2007 @ 07:4056: And Bush didn’t kill anyone innocent, did he? American foreign policy simply reeks of hypocrisy.
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67
Purple Panda
in June 10th, 2007 @ 09:1866 – I completely agree. We lock up and torture innocent people unlawfully, then attack other countries for doing the same thing.
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68
Der Wachtelschlag
in June 10th, 2007 @ 10:3734-The point is 3,000 UNNECESSARY and AVOIDABLE deaths. Not just 3,000 deaths. Oh, and 65,000 Iraqis. And Canadians, may I mention. Just because you keep getting us killed, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care or notice.
46-You’re right on all points, but I’m adding that the Gulf War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War are basically the beginning of the Americans and their plans for exploiting the hell out of everyone. When they say, “Oh, we’re going to help them, we’re going to aid them, free them” what they really mean is that they plan to exploit them and keep exploiting them. Like the “immigration issue”.
48-Idealistic of you.
51-But if you knock them both out, you get…Nancy Pelosi. Hmm.The Americans should really get their noses out of everybody’s business here. And stop beating up on Canada, because guess what? The Canadians really, really, REALLY hate that.
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69
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 10th, 2007 @ 10:47The canadians are way cooler than americans anyway.
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70
dark duke of darkness
in June 10th, 2007 @ 11:43*ascertains that he really isn’t American, despite living in america as an American citizen.* i’m a danish citizen, too!
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71
biblioRose
in June 10th, 2007 @ 11:5168- The immigration issue is different from this situation. They often don’t pay taxes, bring crime and drugs, and demand the same rights as citizens when they aren’t citizens. But they also can be the most trutworthy, honest, and hardworking people you’l ever meet, and they do work other people won’t. It’s a situation that confuses everybody. However it makes me mad when they go on those marches for the same rights as citizens, whilst they carry mexican flags higher American flags!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, that I made a rant out of a sentence, it’s just I couldn’t help it.
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72
Sobriquet
in June 10th, 2007 @ 14:0071- Well, are we really proud of our flag right now? Everyone in this country is an immigrant in some way and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t feel more proud of being mexican. Just because you are a citizen of a particular country doesn’t mean you have to support it or feel more affiliated with it than another. Does that mean they should be denied citizenship? Of course not.
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73
Purple Panda
in June 10th, 2007 @ 14:17It makes me really mad that people are trying to outlaw flag burning. It completely violates free speech. What does everyone else think about the subject?
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74
Sobriquet
in June 10th, 2007 @ 14:3373- Well, not free speach. Free expression, at least. I don’t think flag burning should be a crime.
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75
Sobriquet
in June 10th, 2007 @ 14:42Ack. Speech.
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76
Kagcomix
in June 10th, 2007 @ 14:59sex is a hot topic. i’m doing sexEd in school for the third year in a row. it is not a good idea to show films about how to put on a condom to the children in my class. shudder.
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77
E2MB
in June 10th, 2007 @ 15:1276 – It’s weird. Because sex is now a “private” and “innapropriate” topic, kids go beserk whenever it is mentioned. You used to be able to see dogs do it on the street. Kids raised on farms knew how it worked at a very young age. Now everybody thinks it’s hilarious because they’re talking about a normally forbidden topic. Right before sex ed in my school, this jerk behind me said “we’re havin sex ed today” and I was like “Yea, I know,” and he leaned closer. “Do you like women?” I was thinking like dang you’re weird and I gave him a funny look and he leaned even closer and said “Do you like vag***s?” and I was like “shut up you sick freak”
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78
Alice
in June 10th, 2007 @ 15:23Guys, can you not talk abou it, please. I thought that that was the kind of thing that the GAPAs snipped. Granted, I didn’t read it, but it is not something I want to see in the recent comments bar. Please?
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79
Beavo the Great
in June 10th, 2007 @ 15:2577-Oh God. There are so many sick pervs in this world *dies* there was this one guy who asked me if I would go out with a substitute teacher (who actually was really cute) and when I said No, he was like GAY!!!!!!! HEHEHEHE!!!! And right before sex ed (which they prefer to call FLE: Family Life Education) he was like “Yay! We learn about doing it today! Wheee!!” and leaned in to this girl and was like “Aren’t you EXCITED?” She slapped him.
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80
biblioRose
in June 10th, 2007 @ 15:4872- They want the same rights as American citizens. The are still repersenting though, that they believe Mexico is the country they should respect. It’s a respect issue. In America the American flag is always flown higher, the same goes for any country. I am proud of my flag.
73- If you are going to burn a flag, the ultimate sign of disrespect why are you even in America? I would rather trade all of the starving children in Africa for all of the disrespectful ungrateful americans who would burn their own flag.
I am officially leaving this thread.
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81
E2MB
in June 10th, 2007 @ 15:57Flag burning can be different than disrespect! When I was at boy scout camp, they solemely did that to a bunch of old tattered american flags, then buried the ashes. They were being respectful to the flag, as opposed to throwing it away like a worn-out peice of cloth.
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82
E2MB
in June 10th, 2007 @ 15:5878 – The GAPAs stretch their limits on the hot topics threads. And if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to come here when we are.
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83
E2MB
in June 10th, 2007 @ 16:0079 – If I was in her spot I’d do the same thing, dangit!
Sorry for the 3x post.
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84
Beavo the Great
in June 10th, 2007 @ 16:1778-If you don’t want to see it, then DON’T LOOK! I don’t think anyone here on MuseBlog will be talking about anything that is COMPLETELY gross, are we? No, I didn’t think so. There are no sick pervs here.
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85
Alice
in June 10th, 2007 @ 16:2382- But I still see it on the recent comments bar. If there is one thing that would make me leave MB (for good), it is that. Okay, ‘bye now! (No, I’m not leaving for good (yet), just for now.)
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86
Purple Panda
in June 10th, 2007 @ 16:44I meant freedom of expression…gak, I always do that…
80 (biblio) – I never said I was going to burn a flag. I live in America because this is where I was born, and I am a citizen here. Just because you burn a flag doesn’t mean you are disrespectful or ungrateful. E2MB’s right – they burn flags as a sign of respect, etc., when the flag gets old or touches the ground. But even other flag burning – are you really going to step that far to limit freedom of expression? You have as much right to burn a flag as you do firewood. And what does this have to do with starving African children? (Which is another issue I feel strongly about, and would love to discuss)
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87
biblioRose
in June 10th, 2007 @ 17:4586- I’m going to leave this thread, but before i do I just wanted to say that I meant “you” in a general sense. I responded to E2MB on a different thread and I completly understand that, and have done it before myself. I am not saying they should deny people that right, but asking why someone would want to do that (for reasons other than respect.) I was also saying that many Americans complain, when others would die to live here, and it’s almost a waste to have those people here. Starving african children would love to live in a place with human rights, and a place that didn’t have poverty. I also agree that the Gapa’s should zap you-know what related posts. I really don’t want to offend anybody and I am thankful to have such freedoms. However I think disrespect and anti-patriotism can be dangerous.
Goodbye.
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88
Eccentric the Afterthought
in June 10th, 2007 @ 17:5668 – It is unfortunate that there are so many Canada-bashers here. Canada is a wonderful country! I’ve often wished I could live there.
73 – I don’t think flag burning should be illegal. I don’t agree with it, but I think if someone wants to burn the flag, that’s his/her personal business. There are bigger issues for the government to focus on right now.
76 – As a homeschooler, I never had to take sex ed, thank goodness. It seems like a really awkward topic for a class.
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89
Purple Panda
in June 10th, 2007 @ 18:5087 – I know you’ve left, but the reason people complain about this country is because they want something done. They do not agree with what the government – or something else – is doing, and they want change. One of the great things about this country is that the people give the government its power (at least, that’s how it is supposed to work), and if people want change, they must speak up in order to make it happen/
I could go on a REALLY long rant about what you said about starving children and people dying to live here, but I won’t do it unless people actually want to discuss it.
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90
dark duke of darkness
in June 10th, 2007 @ 19:2980-at the moment, i am not very proud of my flag at all. if we disallow it, we become the kind of police state that you are so quick to invade because you think that they need democracy like us. “It is only the present danger of an immediate evil and an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion.” -justice oliver Wendall Holmes. burning a flag is an expression of ones opinion, and does not cause a clear and present danger, and therefore cannot constitutionally be prohibited. perhaps you think that america is a better country than mexico. obviously the mexicans here are here for a reason. but if you are too xenophobic to allow them to remember and honor their culture, maybe you dont belong here. “I would rather trade all of the starving children in Africa for all of the disrespectful ungrateful americans who would burn their own flag.” umm what? you own starving african children? or you would rather have them in your country, meaning you dont like them, because they are better than someone you think very lowly of.
87-anti-patriotism? i’m sure you mean lack of nationalism. also, why exactly are you leaving? you wouldnt want your values to be challenged?77- i Agree. completely. but your unwillingness to type vagina proves that you are contributing to it.
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91
Elizabeth
in June 10th, 2007 @ 19:4971- actually most Mexicans I know have to pay taxes (taxes are taken out of their paycheck by law every week) but since they don’t want to call attention to the fact that they are here, they never ask for anything from the gov’t because many of them are liiegal. One of the reasons the gov’t isn’t working harder to keep these people out is that they are making lots of money oof of them. It’s so unfair, I hate it.
88- how does the gov’t find out if someone burns a flag? I mean, I could go out to my backyard right now and burn a flag and no one would even know it happened, and most people probably wouldn’t even think to do it if it wasn’t already an issue, it actually seems like a random and strange thing to have the urge to do
and yeah, it is kinda awkward to learn about sex ed in school, especially in the younger grades, like 5th and 6thHas anyone heard about the aids epidemic in Africa? it’s like, 1/3 of all african people have it, it’s awful! I didn’t know it was that bad, Africa is facing extinction, with all these people dying. and it’s usually parent age people, so there won’t be anyone there to raise the kids in 20 years. what’s gonna happen?
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92
biblioRose
in June 10th, 2007 @ 20:03Never mind! I know I’ll look like a coward for making promises and then breaking them, but oh well. I suppose i have no reasons to not want my values challenged.
90- It really doesn’t matter whether or not I prefer Mexcio to America. If I go to Mexico I will fly the mexican flag higher. If i go to Sweden i will fly the Swedish flag higher. Are you recognizing a pattern here? it is a matter of respect, not a matter of preference.
What I meant by that particlar sentence was that too often people take for granted our opportunities here and complain in such a way that is less than crying out for a change and more dwelling or whining. If they hate it in such a way than, I think they should consider the many who live in harsher conditions and would trade the position they so openly bash any day.Gapas can we please quit with the racy comments?
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93
Sobriquet
in June 10th, 2007 @ 21:0392- Somehow, I get the impression that you think being critical of America somehow means you are ungrateful to live here. Not at all. I’m very critical of our country, but if I have a really bad day I make a donation to MSF or another charitable organization because I know someone else is having a worse day. I’m not ungrateful, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit back and accept the government imposing illegal wiretaps and torturing people. Frankly, I’m absolutely disgusted that at the republican debates, the candidates not only endorse torture, but the crowd cheers whenever it is mentioned. The leading republican contender says we should double guantanamo. A scandal is created out of a pricey haircut, and we cannot even give the poor soldiers serving in Iraq a set date for when they will get out. The candidates running for president have to be “cristian enough,” and none of the republican candidates believe people should be allowed to be openly gay in the military (an issue which has resulted in some very important people quiting, thus forcing us deeper into this horrible conflict) Are you proud of that?
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94
Purple Panda
in June 10th, 2007 @ 21:0792 (biblio) – read my other comment (89) if you haven’t already…and are you saying that you would be really proud of any/every country you lived in? I think it is great that you believe in your country, but aren’t there some things it is doing wrong that you would want to change? If a country you were living in was going on a death rampage and murduring thousands of people (this is a hypothetical situation/scenario), would you still be really, really proud of your country? Or would you want to change it?
What is wrong with our comments? I think this is a good discussion and I don’t think that any posts (that I have read, anyway), need to be censored…
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95
E2MB
in June 10th, 2007 @ 21:4190 – I wasn’t sure if that would offend anybody or not, and I didn’t want to risk getting my post snipped.
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biblioRose
in June 10th, 2007 @ 21:4694- i just meant the sexual ones, because it offends some people.
About the flags I just meant that the flag of whatever country you are in should be flown higher.
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97
pen,/ta/to'/nikk (adj)
in June 11th, 2007 @ 00:16re: sex- Look, sex is a fact of life. Um, sorry?
But seriously, censoring discussions and turning sex into something taboo isn’t going to make it go away. Telling kids that sex is horrible and evil and wrong is not going to make them any less curious about it. It’s just going to make them giggly and immature when it’s brought up. And censoring posts containing the “s-word” on Museblog is not going to do anything.
I realize that some people may not want to talk about it. That’s fine. I respect your opinions, but I have opinions too and I want them heard.
And you’re going to hear all this eventually. If you haven’t had sex ed yet, you will. (Even if it’s just “Okay kids, sex is bad, don’t do it, but if you really want to here is how to put a condom on a banana.”) If you’ve had it and your entire class was making really disgusting jokes the entire time, I’m sorry. But pretending that nobody has sex EVAR and that it’s something that nobody else should be able to talk about is not going to solve anything.
In the immortal words of Garbage, “sex is not the enemy.”
I love how we manage to talk about abortion on every HT thread ever created, but as soon as we start talking specifically about sex, half the blog is like “OMGNO.”
re: nationalism- I’m pretty sure most of the blog knows about my undying strong dislike of nationalism. (Which, by the way, is not the same thing as patriotism.) So I’m not going to rant about it again.
re: Iraq- S’like Ebeth said. I don’t know why we got in and I don’t know how we’re going to get out. I am also a bit tired of restating my opinions when I’m not going to change any minds. But here they are: Bush is not Hitler, capital punishment is badness, the war was all about money and finishing what Daddy started, they had order under Saddam, they don’t under us, they need order, 465 billion dollars is a lot, three thousand people is a lot, sixty-five thousand people is a lot..
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98
Shadowkat
in June 11th, 2007 @ 15:1658-When those ad decisions they make are determining how we live our lives, yeah, we do something about it. Now, I don’t like death in general, so hanging might be taking things a little far, but we definitely need to take some kind of action.
61-But we shouldn’t be bringing ANYTHING to ANYONE…it’s none of our business!
65-It’s good to know that there are people like you. I like your view on foreign policy. I agree with it.
71-I’m sorry, but you have a very strange view of the world…
79-Go, girl…:smile:…he deserved it.
88-Lol…I’m homeschooled, too, but I got it in Girl Scouts…bleh.
89-Well, I hate to say it, but it looks like talking isn’t doing…we need to “do”.
90-Nice (on the comment to E2MB).
91-The fact that those taxes are even taken is sick…but I don’t want to get into the whole income tax thing, so I’ll leave it at that. (This is nothing against you, it just caught my eye.)
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Kagcomix
in June 11th, 2007 @ 16:1277- i know. everyone acts so anoying/rude/just plain nasty. i knew what sex was when i was six. i learned it at the science centre in the human body bit i think….
88- thankyou. canada is the most beutiful country ever, we have some realy cool people here (me, bryan lee o’malley)heh heh. me loves me country!
97-we never got shown the condom on the banana! NO FAIR! i’m kidding about that last part. but they actualy didn’t our teacher just showed us many videos on protection and that stuff and we got a huge talk on how to put a condom on.OH. in case anyone gets the wrong idea: i have no problem with sex and stuff i justlike to see what people say.
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100
Lizzie
in June 11th, 2007 @ 16:36we never learned anything about condoms.. Stupid abstinence-only south.. And then they wonder why the teen pregnancy rates are so high..
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101
Otzi
in June 11th, 2007 @ 16:5494: Not so hypothetical. *hemhemIraqhemhem*
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Otzi
in June 11th, 2007 @ 16:56100: We got the condom on a banana demo. And a talk about STIs. And a talk about abortion clinics. And little handouts (“are you ready to have sex?”). And they talked about a whole bunch of other stuff that freaked even my class out…
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103
Beavo the Great
in June 11th, 2007 @ 19:17We get to learn about condems in seventh grade, sixth is all about puberty and STD’s.
I’m sure that bananas never get pregnant with all those “health” teaches sticking condems on themThese sqweemish teachers/parents took a poll and told us what we were NOT going to learn about: Homosexuality, Abortion, and Masturbation. On the Homo topic, there is actually one lesbian girl who is in sixth, and she was very offended by that. There is another girl who got pregnant and had an abortion, and she wasn’t too happy either. No one said anything about anything else though.
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104
Purple Panda
in June 11th, 2007 @ 19:38101 (Otzi) – yeah, I know…I just like to make things sound, well, nice. I wanted to focus on that specific debate, and not go onto a whole other one (which is what I tend to do…).
We never really had any sort of Sex-Ed class. We had some lady come and talk to us about “love” once, but we didn’t do anything like that. But I went to a very sheltered private elementary/middle school. But I think next year, when I take Gym/Health, we learn about that stuff.
There are a lot of homosexual kids in my high school. I go to an arts high school (which is the awesomest school in the whole world), and we have a reputation of being the “gay school.” (given to us by many of the other high schools in the district). But we’re also called sissies, druggies, etc. Because we don’t have sports, and our mascot is a Unicorn. And our Alma Mater begins with “A Unicorn is one of a kind, its magic, beauty, and legend combined.”
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105
Sobriquet
in June 11th, 2007 @ 20:14100- Better than being shown outdated movies from the seventies where some boy goes around asking random people about sex. Literally, he talks to a zookeeper. And a nurse who keeps creepy diagrams that she can pull down at a moments notice.
103- That is just ridiculous. All of those topics need to be covered.
104- That is the other schools’ problem. What type of art do you study?
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106
biblioRose
in June 11th, 2007 @ 21:5693- Motorcycle safety foundation?
98- I get that quite a bit, but It has served me right so far. Im fine being me.
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107
biblioRose
in June 11th, 2007 @ 22:00OOPS!!!! I googled it agian and got medicens Sans frontiers. Wow, that looks like a really awesome cause. I really admire the way you said you always know someone is having a worse day, because thats sort of the way i look at things too.
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108
Vendaval
in June 12th, 2007 @ 14:47oK, it’s finals week here, so I haven’t had much time on the MB, but I just read/skimmed the thread, and saw some things:
46:Do you mean Vichy France?
47/48: Bhutan? Tibet? I think it’s a little close minded to assume that all monarchies are absolute, and that all kings are bad.
103: My town is the “link” to one of the most openly gay towns in america, and people don’t talk about it.
104:That’s awesome!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could go to your schoolFlag Burning: The flag is a symbol of the country. If that country allows you to burn it, then I say go ahead and be proud of it.
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109
Der Wachtelschlag
in June 12th, 2007 @ 19:27We kind of have sex ed. The teacher asked me what I knew about semen, and I told her, and then it was quiet for a few minutes and she moved on.
Which of you are attending/planning to attend high schools that have fencing teams? Mine does.
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110
E2MB is going to stop announcing that he lost the game now because he realizes that it does not benefit mankind
in June 12th, 2007 @ 19:48lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala lalalalalala
People – if we’re going to talk about sex here, we should put some filler text before it because some people don’t like that stuff about sex is appearing on the Recent Comments sidebar.
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111
pen,/ta/to'/nikk (adj)
in June 13th, 2007 @ 00:01109 (Queenie)- Yours is one of, like, five in Illinois that does. I’m attempting to commandeer my school’s sad excuse for a fencing club so we can actually compete or something, but I think I might have to enlist the help of some brutal sabre fencer before I can get anything done.
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112
Purple Panda
in June 13th, 2007 @ 06:19My high school doesn’t have sports, but we may be getting intramural fencing next year! Which is uber awesome. But it’s probably not going to happen. So…I just fence outside of school, at a fencing club which is pretty cool, so yeah…
But that’s awesome, Queenie! You’re so lucky!
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113
Ebeth the Ãœbiquitous Ãœber
in June 13th, 2007 @ 08:40110-just to be difficult…sexsexsexsexsex…
unless you’d rather we die out completely as a species?
really, like penty said, it exists and not talking about it won’t make it any less real.
what people are objecting to when they say stuff like “ew, sex is bad” is porn. which is bad. but sex itself is the reason you’re here today. so don’t try to ignore it, cuz it won’t work.
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114
Der Wachtelschlag
in June 13th, 2007 @ 09:4969-Bien sur.
72-Not true. Yes, the Americans were wildly successful in killing off many of their aboriginals, but many still exist.
87-Yeah. Sure. Right. Not.Marches. Yeah. Did anyone see the marches when trans fats were banned (waaah)? They were very slow marches, so the demonstrators wouldn’t run out of breath.
Sorry.
Incidentally, does anyone have any thoughts on the G-8 summit?
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115
Vendaval
in June 13th, 2007 @ 14:31A thought: Was sex as taboo as it is today before the Church? (Sounds like something FS would post!)
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116
Ebeth the Ãœbiquitous Ãœber
in June 13th, 2007 @ 15:41before which church? if you mean the catholic church, that was a looooooooong time ago…
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117
Julieb
in June 13th, 2007 @ 16:30114- But even the native americans must have come over at some point. Unless you live in a very specific part of Africa, you are descended from an immigrant. Semantics, semantics.
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118
biblioRose
in June 13th, 2007 @ 17:37114- Wow. You should make me the Queen of the Hot topics thread because everyone here loves me so much.
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119
widdershins (e~a)
in June 13th, 2007 @ 18:25104, 105- yes, that is the other school’s problem. And there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality anyways.
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120
E2MB
in June 13th, 2007 @ 19:19113, 115 – Please, people. Alice said she might leave if this keeps up, and I don’t want that to happen.
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121
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 14th, 2007 @ 14:50Ok, flag burning is a sign of criticism of the american government. And shut up with your “ultimate-sign-of-disrespect-get-out-of-the-country” patriotism.
As for sex: NOT A HOT TOPIC. Perfectly normal and natural human activity. Even healthy. Having a lot of sex has the same effect as doing a lot of sport. Homosexuality is perfectly acceptable, and the fact that we as a society are more at ease seeing men holding guns than holding hands is sickening.
As for sex ed, my class here also suffered a stifling of information, caused by the very catholic puritan society. The same thing is very present in the US. Oh God forbid anyone mention sex, one of the seven sins! Yes, a so-called sin, but I repeat, the second most powerful natural urge.Btw, I’m beginning to doubt the existence of Jesus Christ. His life as portrayed in the Bible is identical to that of Horus and Mithras, two pagan gods who were around way before Jesus. Horus was born of a mother and a god, he was baptised at age 30, worked in a temple, and was tempted by the devil, who in egyptian mythology is the god Set. Mithras lived, died, and was resurrected 3 days later. He had twelve disciples, and a big part of the mithraic cult was that the god “died for our evils”. Among his deeds and miracles was the resurrection of a certain Al Azar Us, Lazarus in the Bible. Christianity seems more and more to be a farce in its entirety, with absolutely no credibility at all.
Gah, whenever I start thinking critically about Christianity I get the urge to go blow up a Church, blow it all back into their hypocritical faces…
At a certain point I will post a detailed chronology of hellenic pagan persecutions by the earliest Christians. And this by the people who claim “Thou shalt not kill” and “love thy neighbour”… Oh, and as for “Thou shalt not lie”, has anyone heard about the creationist museum in kentucky? How’s that for brainwashing, religious fanaticism and plain stupidity all rolled into a neat, technological, science imitation pack of bollocks?
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122
Vendaval
in June 14th, 2007 @ 15:10Ok, about the disrespectful citizens, I feel that although most people are ungrateful, limiting democracy would endanger the country.
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123
Sobriquet
in June 14th, 2007 @ 18:23121- Yes, I’ve heard the Mithras thing. We all know how you feel about Christianity Fridgy. There’s no need to start something.
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124
dark duke of darkness
in June 14th, 2007 @ 19:10113-is also difficult-sexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsex
sexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsex107-isnt it kind of sick to make yourself feel better by knowing that other’s are worse off? and my school give heaps of money to MSF for sudan.
96-ummmmmmm why?
109-me too! not that i know how to fence…..
121-dont be like Varg Vikernes…. (not that i’m implying any racism)
and i dunno…i kinda think jesus existed…he was probably a good public speaker. if sex is the second most powerful, then the most powerful is? food?
97-who’s garbage?
the sex taboo is very stupid. ESPECIALLY in movie ratings. one naked woman=r. lots of guns+lots of people getting shot=nc17.
decapitation+disembodiment+horribly evil murderers=r. three naked women=nc-17.
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125
biblioRose
in June 14th, 2007 @ 21:53107- I certainly don’t think so. Realizing that your problem is smaller than most is a good way to put things in perspective. Now, there are times when you should just say this is an awful situation if it really is. It’s like I’m all sad that they don’t have soyjoys at the grocery store, but I’m lucky to even have acess to such a nice grocery store. Some people don’t even have that.
121- This week I went on mission trips with my christian church. We volunteered at a food bank. We participated in a project to help underprivileged innnercity children. We greeted tired soldiers at the airport. We wrapped boxes for operation Christmas child. We helped younger chldren learn to love eachother. If that makes us terrible people then I guess we’re all really proud of being so terrible. Does that mean that our kind actions justify the actions of some pretty crazy radicals HUNDREDS of years ago? No. So you need to rake a look around at todays modern christians, who are wonderful, loveing helpful people. There are radicals in every religion, but you can’t use them to repersent your model of that entire religion. And then maybe you’ll realize how deeply stereotypical your commens are.
124- Well, yeah! Of course those ratings are appropriate! Kids mirror the images they see in Movies and on TV! I don’t want my future children to do/see any of those things when they are young, and the ratings help tell parents that these are images that kids shouldn’t be watching.
I just wanted to say it makes me so dissapointed how one of the soldiers at the airport had to watch on CNN everyday how much people hated the soldiers/war and how that really sunk their motivation. He was worried people would spit at him in the airport because he had been told that’s what happened to Vietnam vets. In my opinion even if you disagree with their purpose, there is no doubt that their sacrifice is admirable.
124- You flag the flaf higher as a show of respect!!!!!!!!!!!! Its just a silly flag but a repersents a country, and therefore should be flown higher to signify that respect.
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126
biblioRose
in June 14th, 2007 @ 21:55take not rake. Sorry. Loving not loveing.
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127
Purple Panda
in June 15th, 2007 @ 09:48125 (biblio) – What do you mean by “fly the flag higher”? You use it all the time, but it can mean many different things. What do you mean by that?
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128
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 15th, 2007 @ 13:22125: Are those things characteristic of the christian church? Does one need to be christian to act like that? And something you fail to realize is that many evils were not committed by some crazy radicals a bunch of centuries ago, but by the actual official church and people who were considered worldwide as ‘good christians’. The church condoned fascism in germany and italy. The churches in the US condoned the iraq war. The vatican protected the priests involved in paedofilia. The official church, and not a bunch of hotheads, has been methodically wiping away any opposition and increasing its financial and political power, people have too much respect for it, and it’s time we got rid of it.
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129
biblioRose
in June 15th, 2007 @ 14:43128- You are still being so very stereotypical! I am not proud of the way certain people have acted, but they acted not because they were christians, but because they were clearly bad people! Evidently what I told you proves that not all (not most!)christians do terrible/questionable things. I do not doubt your points, but you need to stop reffering to christians as a whole and more like individual people whom you can’t put a lable on. Just because a very few christians jave done wrong things does not mean all condone such behavior.
127- You fly the flag higher than another countries flag. Ex:
A
B
The A is higher than than the B.
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130
E2MB
in June 15th, 2007 @ 14:55128 – No, people who aren’t Christians do charitable stuff like that too. But Christianity urges it’s followers to do those good deeds.
121 – Dude, I’m not trying to say we shouldn’t talk about sex here. But Alice is offended that we’re talking about stuff like this, and I don’t want her to leave because she works very hard on the RRRs. So if you talk about sex here, make sure it’s not the first thing in your post so it won’t show up on the recent comments sidebar.
About sex being a sin: Humans who have hit puberty are now endowned with an awesome new gift – fertility. This incredible power to create new human beings must be used wisely. If people have sex before marriage and get pregnant, it can cause hard feelings, embarrasement, possibly a trip to the abortion clinic, and one human who’s life is off to a relitavely bad start. And even if you don’t get pregnant or make somebody else pregnant, having sex with a lot of different people can lead to the spread of STDs. If a virgin marries a virgin and they have sex, there is no danger of an STD. Fertility is both a gift and a responsibility – use it wisely.
124 – READ MY RESPONSE TO POST 121!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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131
Otzi
in June 15th, 2007 @ 15:08um, Fridge, you’re generalizing. Certain vocal branches of the Christian church condoned the war. Many others did not.
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132
E2MB
in June 15th, 2007 @ 15:15131 – Hey, yea! Do some research FS!
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133
Elizabeth
in June 15th, 2007 @ 15:25121 (second peaegraph)- jesus wasn’t baptized when he was 30, he died when he was 30, anyway, baptism is a christian sacrament
128- the church isn’t the same as christianity, but I do believe we’ve been over this, I know I’ve said that before
129, second coment- you made that very clear. Now, what if you are holding 3 flags and standing on the exact border between New York and Pennslyvania. One flag is for NY, one is for Pennslyvania, and one is for the united states. One arm is in a sling because you just got hurt in a fight you were fighting for 3 Iraqi women against 3 american soldiers that were abusing the women in Iraq. Because your arm is in a sling, you can only hold one flag in that hand and it is not being held very high. the other hand has to hold the other 2, (or you could set one on the ground…) but those 2 are going to be held at the same level. What should you do? P.S. your country of origin is Afganistanhaha, it’s like those “logical thinking” problems, like that one about the fox, chicken, and bag of feed. I never could figure that one out…
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134
Purple Panda
in June 15th, 2007 @ 17:04129 (Biblio) – So you think that your country is better than every other country?
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135
biblioRose
in June 15th, 2007 @ 19:33134- No! Well, actually I do think the Us is the best country in the world, but thats beside the point. If I move to say, Greece for a little while (I’m still an American!!) and I say, hey I want to fly some flags outside my house, I will fly the Greece flag higher and an American flag slightly lower to show respect for my home country and respect for the country I am in. And I really don’t want to have to explain that agian, because I’ve repeated that a dozen times.
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136
Purple Panda
in June 15th, 2007 @ 20:08125 (Biblio) – I know you keep repeating yourself, but you never really explain why. I know you will always “fly your flag higher,” but how is that not the same as thinking your country is better than all the rest? Yes, it’s respect for your country, but it is also placing the other countries lower. Is there anything that the United States is doing that you don’t like?
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137
biblioRose
in June 15th, 2007 @ 20:22136- Of course there is! But it is just so amzing to me that you can look at any face in the world, with any physical ethnic characteristics and say that person is an american. You can’t really do that anywhere else. And the constitution is brilliant. And despite everything it is my home. I am an american and I feel lucky to be a part of it. But honestly, can you agree with everything about any country. And its not that MY flag should be higher its that what ever countries I am in should be flown higher, whichever flag that may be. I’m still an american wherever i go, and I still try to have class and manners wherever I go.
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138
Purple Panda
in June 15th, 2007 @ 21:08137 (biblio) – There are a lot of things I like about this country, just the bad things seem to be outweighing the good things right now. I do like the Constitution, if only our government would follow it… I’m not saying I’m not grateful live in America, I’m just saying that this country is doing a lot of absolutely terribly horrible things right now, and at the moment, I don’t understand how so many people can be so proud of it. I don’t think I was really understanding what you meant about the flag, but I think I get it now…
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139
niugnep
in June 15th, 2007 @ 21:45I know this was a while ago, but I would like to straighten out the relationship between terrorism and the war in Iraq. (If someone already did this, I appologize because I was just skimming).
Terrorists who threaten America with attacks like 9/11 want something out of us. Specifically, they are angry about the creation of Israel and want it like it was before. They blame this on the United States because it is powerful. The Iraq war, now pretty much a sectarian war which has nothing at all to do with Israel, was seperate.
On religion:
I have no problem with your religion as long as you keep it to yourself.On nationalism:
It seems an awful lot like FS is going out of his way to insult biblioRose’s nationalism. I know that FS has very strong nationalism himself.
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140
biblioRose
in June 15th, 2007 @ 22:16139- i don’t neccesarily have nationalism I a just appreciative. And I agree with almost everything in that post.
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141
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 16th, 2007 @ 02:45But doesn’t the Bible say something like “the church shall be the voice of god on earth”? I can’t remember the exact lines, but I’m pretty sure there’s something like that in there. And no, not all churches condoned the war, but the fact that many did, is outrageous. There is no excusing Christianity, it’s a movement that has killed more people than anything. JC, called the “prince of peace”, has had more people die in his name than in anyone else’s, including Hitler. Don’t give me theological crap, because Christianity is an idea, a myth, something subjective, that has caused tremendous damage and continues to do so. A parallel can be made with guns: many people use guns to hunt and sustain the meat market, this is something good. Yet I don’t think anyone would be against getting rid of guns completely because of the deaths they’ve caused. Even though without guns, we’d all go around with battleaxes… Damn that would be awesome…
As for nationalism: I have a very stron patriotic sense because I have a country I can be proud of. The only good thing the US did that I can remember in recent history was producing hippies and saving Europe’s arse in WWII. I would never be patriotic (in fact I am not, despite having an american passport and citizenship, I always make sure everyone knows I consider myself Swiss) for a country that bullied the rest of the world, considered a made up religion the absolute power and truth in the world, and generally stuck it’s dirty american nose everywhere it doesn’t belong…
Oh and 137: Class and manners do not belong in the same sentence as ‘american’. Just thought I’d point that out
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142
Purple Panda
in June 16th, 2007 @ 06:48Every country has its good sides and down sides, and right now America has many downsides. I guess I agree with everything FS said on that point…but I don’t mean it in a mean way toward other people. America is too powerful for its own good, as it seems. The Constitution is great, and if the Government would only follow it, we might have a good country. I’m not sure what I’m saying here, but I’m most definitely not proud of my country right now, because to be proud of it, to me, is to be proud of its actions. And I’m not.
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143
biblioRose
in June 16th, 2007 @ 09:42141- Okay FS, according to your stereotypical beliefs I MUST be
1. Hypocritical
2. Insane
3. rude
4.impolite
5. NaiveWOW! And you haven’t even met me! It sure is great you have this brilliant system to judge people off of!
And exactly how many people has christianity killed in the past 5 years? Not including christian soldiers or crazy murderers? And what exactly is wrong with that verse? What is basically means us that if people want to know about or have a realtionship with god they can come to a church. It is about as bad as calling schools the voice of education. Now, can you stop insulting me and every thing I stand for because the “lets insult bibliorose’s beliefs whatever they may be in a rude manner” game is getting a little old. Not stop saying your opinions but saying them in a tad nicer way. If thats even possible. Because I want to leave, and I think you’ll probably miss bullying me.
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144
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 16th, 2007 @ 10:16Christian soldiers are inspired by Christianity. It doesn’t mean that all Christians are killers, just as it doesn’t mean that all people with psyhological difficulties are murderers, because some are. But if we manage to completely eliminate psychological disorders, we also eliminate all the murderers who are killers because of pd. Now, if we were to eliminate Christianity we would have no people killing in the name of Christianity. Of course some people will kill anyways, but before Christianity came along there were a lot less massacres.
If we got rid of Christianity, we would lose a big political force acting on mythology and fables.
We would no longer have people clamoring for banning gay marriage just because the Bible says so.
We wouldn’t have churches sucking up money to pay for statues and altar cloths while not paying their taxes.
We wouldn’t have a big organization protecting people who abused their position to molest children.
We would no longer have Christianity as a way to god. Guess what? Christianity was never a pathway to god. It was a rielaboration of various pagan myths and rituals, it was a facade, a lie, a bunch of bollocks. And through political and psychological maneuvering it managed to become the strongest influence on the western world, and the cause for many of our subconscious attitudes. Like homophobia, like the taboo of mentioning sex in polite conversation, like people feeling guilty for indulging in pleasure.
And schools aren’t necessarily “the voice of education”. There are good schools and bad, schools run by religious people and schools run by scientists.
And calling my beliefs stereotypical just because they happen to be true and apply to a movement, organization and idea rather than individual people is getting you nowhere. I have many Christian friends, and all of them are hypocritical, behaving in a very un-Christian way (indulging in gluttony, occasional violence, lust). As a matter of fact, I behave in the most morally correct way, despite my being a pagan.
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145
E2MB
in June 16th, 2007 @ 10:24143 – He’s bullied us all on the previous Religion threads (which no longer exist for this very reason). He got banned from the blog for a week at least once and probably is the reason the MBer kricket left MuseBlog.
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146
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 16th, 2007 @ 10:33145: What’s disgraceful is that I got banned for calling someone an “emotional whimp”, while people who told me I would burn in hell and they hoped I would burn in hell didn’t. And the blog is better off without an ignorant, dogmatic religious person.
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147
biblioRose
in June 16th, 2007 @ 10:49145- Well, then It will be the reason I leave museblog too. Goodbye Museblog it’s been nice, but I just have to side with Kricket on this one.
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148
Purple Panda
in June 16th, 2007 @ 10:55146 – Don’t leave, biblio!! We need you to help us plan the election, and such!! And you’re an awesome MBer! And FS, this isn’t the religions thread, so let’s stay away from that topic.
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149
Ebeth The Titleless
in June 16th, 2007 @ 11:09look, love you and all fridgey but i have to say i ignore probably three quarters of what you say. why is it so hard for you guys to do that too? i’m not saying fridgey is justified in being stereotypical and insulting, but i think people in general are too easily offended. so somebody insulted you, that doesn’t mean you have to leave. it means you write them off as an idiot and get on with life. again, hearts to all but seriously guys, let’s move on. i think at this point there aren’t many more arguments to make anyway.
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150
emmatheduck
in June 16th, 2007 @ 11:41biblioRose-just because FS is being a jerk doesn’t mean you hve to leave MB. My advice is stay off of threads like HT and religion-related things if you don’t like them, but stay on mB in general. i hardly ever come to threads like this, especially not if they start to get mean, and i still love the parts of MB that i am on.
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151
Beavo the Great
in June 16th, 2007 @ 11:49146-I do dissagree that the people who said you should burn in hell should be banned for at least a week like you, but still, there is not any reason to call people a wimp. You are not always right, and neither are they, or me for that matter.
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152
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 16th, 2007 @ 11:54Religion is a hot topic, why shouldn’t it be discussed here?
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153
Der Wachtelschlag
in June 16th, 2007 @ 12:12Fridgey, Fridgey, Fridgey. Sigh. You put me in mind of a bull loose in a china store. I admit I have no particular fondness for Christians, or any religious people (they make me nervous) but the Christians on this thread had better stop squealing like stuck pigs.
Can we talk about something that’s less inflammatory? Free silver, for example, or Communism?
128-I’m surprised at you. You didn’t mention the whole keeping-Latin-America-in-subservience thing. Along with the Americans.
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154
E2MB
in June 16th, 2007 @ 12:59146 – Don’t forget that that was AFTER you told her your religion was a bunch of garbage and told her that she was an example of human ignorance and stupidity. You could say that you pushed her buttons a bit too far. And you called RtH an emotional wimp AFTER you had already called DDoD a moron and idiot and RtH was expressing sadness because there was name calling.
147- Don’t leave! Just because FS is a mean, inconsiderate, name-calling jerk doesn’t mean you have to leave MuseBlog! We’re all fed up with FS’s behavior, and 146 is just another example of his stereotypical hateness of anyone who tries to defend their christian belifs.
152 – Because you’re being mean to other MuseBloggers when we talk about this topic, and you automatically chew up and spit out any Christian MBer who tries to defend their belifes!
I’m sorry for calling you all kinds of nasty things FS, but I’m just very ticked off!
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155
E2MB
in June 16th, 2007 @ 13:25Famous posts by FS (links fixed):
Here’s a very famous one. Read it and the posts that follow.
Another famous post.
Here’s kricket’s blow-up post and FS’s famous response.
Here’s yet another famous post and yet another blow-up.
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156
Lizzie
in June 16th, 2007 @ 14:23It’s kind of weird, but FS actually reminds me a whole lot of my brother. A lot of what he says is similar to our dinnertable conversations when he’s home (he’s in college), minus the whole paganism part.. I’m kind of surprised FS hasn’t gotten around to calling all of us bourgeois yet.. But seriously, people, all the fun in saying inflamatory, etc stuff is in the reaction. Just because someone else is being immature doesn’t mean that you have to respond in kind.
And on the whole issue of Christianity, I know many Christians, and many non-Christians. Some of the Christians are some of the sweetest, kindest, best people I’ve ever met. Some of the non-Christians are also some of the sweetest, kindest, best people I know. I can’t stand some of the Christians. Ditto for the non-Christians. Some Christians that I know proselytize all the time, proclaiming the wonderfullness of Jesus etc. Some non-Christians I know try to get everyone to be their religion also, claiming how all the others are a bunch of hogwash and can you believe anyone actually believes that whole Christianity stuff? it’s all bs and was never true for a second and let me tell you about the glory of ______. People are people. It doesn’t really matter what religion they are, you’re always going to get along with some and not with others. Some people will be nice to everyone, and some people wiill be nasty to everyone. Some will try to shove their beliefs in your face, whether those are based on the existance of a god or on the nonexistance, and some will be cool with whatever you think. I doubt that there’s a single religion or non-religion that has a completely “clean” record, without any crime or lies or etc. It’s all people, and in my opinion, radical athiests and fundamentalist Christians have at least as much if not more in common to each other than they have to more tolerant forms of their belief.
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157
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in June 16th, 2007 @ 14:48We GAPAs vastly prefer MBers to be civil and tolerant of one another’s beliefs, but there’s only so much we can do when people decide they’d rather not. Instead of preaching a sermon, I’ll just give you two quotations:
1. I saw this in one of Robert Heinlein’s books (Glory Road? Podkayne of Mars? Juliette undoubtedly knows), though it didn’t originate with him: “An insult is like poison: it doesn’t affect you unless you accept it.”
2. From Robert Frost: “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
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158
E2MB
in June 16th, 2007 @ 14:54157 – Interesting.
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159
biblioRose
in June 16th, 2007 @ 15:23157- I like those. However perhaps I am tired of having poisen thrust at me. I am hoping that I don’t sound whiny, I just don’t want to be in an enviroment where I my beliefs are constantly beat down. If someone came up and said those things to me I would not associate with them. Debating intelligently is one thing; constant and extreme disrespect is another. I’m sort of stressed out right now for family reasons, and I apoligize for being so dramatic, so maybe now i won’t go on this thread, I don’t really know.
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160
widdershins (e~a)
in June 16th, 2007 @ 15:57159- I (at least) appreciate your opinions. You seem much more thoughtful and less un-civil than is possible. You consider other peoples opinions, and support your own without saying things like “those that don’t agree with me are stupid” which a pointless inflamatory thing to say. I appreciate your posts and opinions here and understand why you are getting frustrated. It is frustrating to me too that MBers feel that they cannot exist without getting their beliefs automatically shot down, that some can’t seem to discuss without heated argument. If I recall, Hot Topics was originally never a place for argument but a place for intelligent discussion. People never used to use caps locks or attack each other. I think it is sad that the arguments on this current thread has pushed so many (including myself) away.
157- thank you for pointing that out and posting those quotes!
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161
Purple Panda
in June 16th, 2007 @ 16:56157 (Robert) – thanks for posting those!
160 (ea) – I completely agree.
I (well, this is my opinion) think we were having a good, civil discussion about flags and nationalism and such, and idea-bashing is not necessary. This thread, (as ea said), should be a place for intelligent discussion, not for bashing arguments.
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biblioRose
in June 16th, 2007 @ 17:25161- And I enjoyed that a lot! We had a good discussion where we asked questions and didn’t generalize. Then somewhere it sort of became something else.
160- Thank You very much, and I completly agree.
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163
Elizabeth
in June 16th, 2007 @ 20:37146- I think the blog is better off with everyone that wants to be here. if we didn’t have different views we would all get bored… especially FS
149- exactly, I don’t really care what FS says anymore about my religion, so I actually laugh sometimes at his posts, they really are pretty funny
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164
Shadowkat
in June 17th, 2007 @ 09:10Alright, why is everyone insulting Fridgey, all of a sudden (I mean in such great volume, for no apparent reason)? Did I miss something? Because if there’s no reason for it, then you guys are being pretty mean…
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165
niugnep
in June 17th, 2007 @ 10:39FS, you blame a lot of deaths on Christianity. Your point is valid and true, but atheism is not entirely innocent either. For example, Stalin was responsible for many more deaths in Russia than Hitler in Germany, and he was the atheistic leader of an atheistic movement.
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166
agagabagabag
in June 17th, 2007 @ 11:25165- Riiiiight. There are way more deaths caused by Christianity. Give me another athiesm example. Oh, and Stalin didn’t kill people because of athiesm. lt was a coincidence. Yet people like George Bush and Constantine killed for christianity. And when did you get here?
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167
FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 17th, 2007 @ 13:10165: For what Stalin did, the motivation was authoritarian government and the communist system, something I am against. Although it is true that communism forces atheism onto everyone (the idea being that with no religions there will be less social inequalities- true, but executed the wrong way by the bolsheviks) Stalin did not kill in the name of atheism. And are you sure he killed more people than Hitler? I don’t know the exact figures in Russia.
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168
E2MB
in June 17th, 2007 @ 14:02164 – Look at post 155.
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agagabagabag
in June 17th, 2007 @ 14:31155 and 168- Hmm… I would say that FS has done nothing wrong. Kricket was just being stubborn and saying that it was a bad thing for other people to point out the problems of humanity. FS is kind of my hero because he’s a defender of truth, and the true truth, not the stubborn christian “belief” truth. It’s not really so much belief as it is narrow- mindedness.
Ya know, l don’t see why everyone says that l should respect other people’s beliefs. They have none for mine. And religions like Christianity and Islam don’t deserve respect at all, because they’ve totally trashed up the world. I’m fed up with respect.
Yesterday, my friends Alex and David were talking about atheism when we were rudely interrupted by a rude boy scout from Utah:
RBSU: *smirking* Yer an Atheist?
David: Wow, l hope that’s not your real accent.
Me: (rather loudly) With someone who’s’ prejudice against atheists it probably is.
*We laugh*
Me: (turns to RBSU) What’s wrong with Athiesm?
RBSU: *Scoffs* Heh. A lot.
See what l mean?
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biblioRose
in June 17th, 2007 @ 16:12169- If anyone is being stereotypical it is you and FS. I’m not saying your beliefs are wrong or “stupid”, but you both are basing your beliefs off people like that boy scout. Just because they haven’t given you respect does’t mean you should recipricate. Those sort of people (like the Boy scout) frustrate me because they give a bad name to certian religions or groups of people, and honestly if thats the sort of people you are constantly around than I can;t blame you. But please do know that not all christians or muslims are that way. I think we should all treat eachother with kindensss and respect, and I am sorry if this has offended you, but they are my beliefs.
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niugnep
in June 17th, 2007 @ 16:42Atheism wasn’t exactly Stalin’s motive for killing people (I just looked it up, and Stalin killed between 10 and 20 million and Hitler only about 6 million), but it’s not Bush’s motive either. I’ll give that Hitler killed at least in part because of Christianity, but he is about the only one I can think of. In most examples motives of money and power were hidden behind religious pretenses. Considering the number of Christian or secular/Christian governments compared to Atheist governments, Atheists have done their share of harm.
FS and agagabagabag
I know I sound preachy saying this, but I’m an Atheist too and I don’t like your little crusade. I live in a Christian world and I have lots of Christian friends, but I restrain myself from bashing their beliefs because they are basically cool people and really fun to be around. Doing that would convince no one and acheive nothing except to make them hate me. Live and let live. Okay, lecture is over. Carry on, as I know you will.
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Dancergirl13
in June 17th, 2007 @ 19:11I dont know much about religion becuase there is not a church in our area that shares the same religion as us, but I just wanted to say one thing. And again, I am sorry if it is something…I dont know, just keep in mind I dont know anything about religion. My friend was saying at lunch one day ” I dont trust people of this religion, that religion, or this religion” I cant remember specifically which ones, but I know many people of different religions, and it made me mad. Just becuase someone is of a certain religion, or believes something different than you, doesnt mean you shouldnt trust them or something. Sorry again.
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Lioness
in June 17th, 2007 @ 20:23Okay, I respect everyone’s opinion, but these insults are starting to sound like flaming, and I really don’t like that.
By saying that Christians and Islams trashed the world, you are basically saying that all people who are Christian or Islam should immediately convert and look back in shame upon all the evil we have reaped in the horrible world. Please, religion is only one aspect of a person’s life, and I am really starting to get aggravated. Just because you don’t share the same beliefs doesn’t mean you should force your beliefs on someone else. I respect every religion, and think every person has a right to be what they want to be.
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Lizzie
in June 17th, 2007 @ 21:26Well, partly the reason more people have been killed by Christians than other religions is that there’s more Christians around to do the killing. I mean, if you compare the number of Christian murderers to the number of, say, FSM murderers, yeah there’s going to be a lot more Christian ones than FSM. The proportion of murders:general population would probably be about the same, though, although I’m talking out of my hat here.
Okay, not sure if that is even related. Carry on.
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Shadowkat
in June 18th, 2007 @ 13:14168-Well, yeah, I looked at all of those, but that’s no reason to start trash-talking him, now…
NO FLAMING!!!!!!!!
Understood?
Thank you.
That is all.
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E2MB
in June 18th, 2007 @ 15:05170 – Exactly how I feel.
174 – That’s a very good point, actually. If you looked at these things porportionally, they may not be that different.
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rabbity24
in June 18th, 2007 @ 15:46I am a Christian, make no mistake, but I think that Christians are a little stuck up and overpowering. I mean, look at the Crusades. Or the KKK. But, I mean, all religions have their downsides. Now that people realize that Christians are a little stuck up (not insulting anybody, believe me) they are rebeling a little and here come the other terrorists. Christians dominate quite a bit but now the minorities can speak up for themselves and they plan to. Atheists are fine and they don’t believe in anything right? I respect everybody’s religion cuz I’ve never been really sure mine is the right one. People who believe in their religion too much tend to be the ones who turn out to be jerks, right?
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 18th, 2007 @ 15:55174-Horrible point. Completely dumb idea! Of course there are more Christian murderers than FSM murderers! I don’t even know a single FSM practicer! It is a tiny religion! But you don’t understand that those Christians were not following what they teach in the Bible-they were extremists just like the Muslim terrorists. Those Muslim terrorists did not follow the teachings of the Quran-they took their religion to the extreme! Either way, there have been way more Atheist murderers* than Christian murderers!
*BTW, I realize that there are some things going around saying I am a atheist-hater, just like there are rumors saying that FS is a Christian-hater, but I do have many good friends who are atheists, so please do not believe these rumors. I do not agree with their religion, but religion is only one aspect of their being! They are very kind and great people, even if I do not agree with their religion! I am sorry, FS, but to me, it seems like your whole entire life is about tearing down Christianity, but that will cause wars and genocides! Don’t you realize that? That IS why the Holocaust happened-because Hitler could not tolerate Jews! Your whole life, FS, is about religion, and you cannot tolerate anyone who does not agree with you about religion. There are many kind Christians out there, like me,(although I KNOW you do not think I am kind) but if you got to know me, then you might think I am nice, and vice versa for me. Religion is only a tiny aspect of a person’s character. I know this may sound hippocritical, but I find it dumb to argue about religion by saying that “so and so religion killed people, so all of those religion are bad”, or something like that, because those are only some people – not everyone of a certain religion is like each other and share the same beliefs.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 18th, 2007 @ 16:01169-Let me say one thing: Have YOU ever stopped to think that YOU are being NARROW-MINDED?????????????? And you have NO RIGHT to say that Christians have no actual belief, just stubborness, [snip! let’s be polite, please. — Admin.]
All religions have some sort of faith in them, and no religion has any REAL ACTUAL truth that proves every other religion wrong!
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 18th, 2007 @ 16:05agagabagabag-Alice just told me that you came back from a week of Boy Scout summer camp on Catalina Island! That is SO COOL! So did I! You went to Camp Cherry Valley, right? What clan were you in? What merit badges did you take?
Oh, wait, sorry guys. This discussion probably isn’t on the right thread. Maybe we should take this to another thread.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 18th, 2007 @ 16:06Sorry for the triple post….gah! Sorry for the quadruple post!
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ultimate jeeves
in June 18th, 2007 @ 17:17I really don’t want to be rude but who cares?!!! My god, (Pardon the pun) I may not be religeous, but I don’t go around talking trash about others beliefs! And don’t be the kind of people that try to convert others either! There’s some people I know who say: If you aren’ t a …, you’ll go to hell.
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biblioRose
in June 18th, 2007 @ 18:49178- By insulting her, you are contributing to a religous stereotype, and only proving other peoples points.But I do agree with you on how most extremist religous folowerdas are not following the religion properly.
174- I second E2MB. Good point.
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ultimate jeeves
in June 18th, 2007 @ 19:07All I am saying Donaldo, is that you can’t prove ANY religion is true. And biblioRose, I’m not trying to stop this debate, I’m just taking part in it. By the way I heard Donaldo’s leaving HOT TOPICS.
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E2MB
in June 18th, 2007 @ 19:16180 – He doens’t really like boy scouts because there’s supposedly “god-worshipping” involved.
183 – Frigidsymphony is a boy, and so is agagabagabag. Just thought you’d like to know….
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Elizabeth
in June 18th, 2007 @ 19:30175- no flaming, right, the GAPAs always put that on the hot topics threads and it never does anything… hey GAPAs, maybe you should try saying, “please flame here”…kinda reverse psychology, and people wouldn’t flame…just a thought, though i doubt many people would act any differently… oh well
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Sobriquet
in June 18th, 2007 @ 19:33182- Good point. Sorry, unfortunately religious debates on museblog tend to get… heated. I know you’re new, and I don’t want you getting the wrong idea about museblog. Outside of the hot topics thread, we’re really quite nice. Even those who fight on certain threads usually get along on others.
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biblioRose
in June 18th, 2007 @ 19:56185- He was insulting Lizzie I believe. And boy scouts and girl scouts are christian organizations.
186- haha
184- I don’t think I understand.
178- Sorry, where you being sarcastic?
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Ebeth The Titleless
in June 18th, 2007 @ 21:01Yeah, 178…i’m not sure you got lizzie’s point there. And donaldo, that’s the kind of insulting disregard for other people’s ideas that was getting everybody mad at FS. Let’s have some intelligent debate without name-calling. Intelligent debate shouldn’t even have any room for name-calling, because to me, intelligent debate means trying to consider your opponent’s opinion with a fair and unbiased mind. That doesn’t mean suddenly agree with whatever they’re saying, but you’re allowed to change your mind once in a while, and the least you can do is listen to them.
So hey, HTers, let’s be wonderful people and change the subject. How about a hot topic instead of a theological debate? Anybody have any new ideas?
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niugnep
in June 18th, 2007 @ 21:35What candidates do you all support in the US presidential primaries coming up? How do you feel about the new system of just campaining all the time instead of having an election season?
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Lizzie
in June 18th, 2007 @ 22:16178 – it’s not about the sheer numbers; it’s about the ratio. And FSM is just an example of a religion – replace it with whatever you want. And murderers aren’t always (or usually, even) extremists – sometimes they can just be someone that has had a really really bad day and someone says something that pushes them over the edge and they snap.
190 – Obama ’08!
What do you guys think about violence in video games? Excessive? Is it detrimental to society? Should it be regulated? How?
(Sorry, I wrote my research paper this year on the topic of violent video games. What I ended up arguing was that violent video games produce real-life violence, and should be regulated by consumer action – in other words, don’t buy them.Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play Halo.)
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ultimate jeeves
in June 18th, 2007 @ 23:05OH god politics! Almost as bad as religeon debates!
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Fortune Cell
in June 19th, 2007 @ 00:45191- I think if someone starts early enough (my cousin was playing GTA and Halo when he was 6), it can have detrimental effects. I think, at a certain age or level of maturity, people can tell the difference between video game violence and real life violence.
I hope I’m making some amount of sense. you know?190- Obama.
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ultimate jeeves
in June 19th, 2007 @ 08:16Yeah, it’s the same with tv. My uncle lets his 4 year old kid watch Pans Labrinth!
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Lizzie
in June 19th, 2007 @ 10:09193- but there’s still issues with older kids; studies have shown that time spent playing violent video games can be linked to more violent behavior than normal.
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biblioRose
in June 19th, 2007 @ 11:11191- I feel that it would be un- constitutional to ban them completly, but perhaps they can have clearer age limits, and actually convince parents into followings them. To much violence on tv or video games is always bad, and I’ve never played a video game in my life.
190- I am frustrated because I can’t find a candidate that is supportive of gay marriage, pro- life, wants to gradually end the war, has a definite plan about immigartion, and is going to really think about our healthcare system. Not that I could vote any way.
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Vendaval
in June 19th, 2007 @ 12:16188- How are the Boy Scouts Christian? I know for a fact that you can get Islamic merit badges. Go google “muslimscout”
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Elizabeth
in June 19th, 2007 @ 13:38190- I really don’t know, Hillary nd Obama are both really good options (having 2 good candidates is different…) I had chosen Hillary, then I went to D.C. with my mom and, i guess I’m just not used to cities, but seeing how blacks really aren’t at the same social level as whites. It doesn’t matter what they teach us in school about everyone being equal…they aren’t. blacks (usually) have the poorer service jobs and the white people are more important. Not that they are worse people… but I think having a black president would be really good, it’d raise morale, if anything. I don’t know quite how to say this…but I think teaching about equality in schools doesn’t do a thing, (“actions speak louder than words”) if a black person was shown as being intelligent, important…just a good person, instead of a gangster city type, that’d be a big step toward equality, but as it is, I really don’t think people are equal, stereotypes are still prevelant
191- my friend wrote the same type of paper, only she said it didn’t effect people that played/watched/listened to them. I kinda disagree but i didn’t argue. It was actually funny, I heard 2 kids talking and they were saying how their video games taught a lot of useful stuff…like history, and by the way, “just think if i never played [insert violent game title here] I wouldn’t know how to shoot a gun” ohhhhh, and everyone needs to be able to shoot a gun, don’t they??? Just think how dreadful it would be if anyone couldn’t shoot a gun… so we’d better all play those video games, and get good at learnig to press certain button and watch virtual guns get shot at virtual people and… yeah… I get kinda fired up about tht one
195- I wonder if i has to do with the fact that these kids aren’t interacting so much with other kids because they are playing video games… it makes sence that people that spend more time with others are more acclimated (sp?) to everyday life and know better how to behave (for example, non-violently)
196- they don’t have to be supportive of gay mariage (do they? not for me at least) they just have to be tolerant, same with being “pro-life” I don’t think people should be forced to do anything of that nature (personal and private) by the gov’t. And, what do you mean by thinking about healthcare and having a plan for immigration? Just wondering…
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 19th, 2007 @ 14:51188-Tiny correction-Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts do believe in honoring God, and have a Christian lenient, but that does not mean that they are Christian organizations. I know many atheists and buddhists in scouts. There technically is no God-worshipping, but at camps we do sometimes sing Christian hymns. The BSA is always trying to be politically correct and non-stereotypical
190-I am republican, but if I were a democrat, i would say Obama all the way!
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E2MB
in June 19th, 2007 @ 15:16199 – *gasp* Another Republican besides me! Hi!
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Purple Panda
in June 19th, 2007 @ 15:26I’m personally for Edwards, but I think any of the Democratic candidates would be okay. Anyone is better than Bush. I don’t want Hillary Clinton to win the primary election, because there are many democrats who would rather vote for a republican rather than her, so if she wins the primary we may have another republican president. I’m glad Obama is doing well, though, he is a great candidate as well.
And of course, Gore is the best, too. I think both McCain and Edwards will pull out of the election if he decides to run, right? At least that’s what my mom said they said they were going to do…
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biblioRose
in June 19th, 2007 @ 15:48198- What I meant was they had to allow it to be a perfectly legal thing, so supporing its legal status. Also for me being pro-life is important, because I see it as murder, and unless the woman will die or have serious health issues after the pregnancy then there is no reason to murder a life. I was watching this show on tv the other day about a woman who gave birth to premature sextuplets. They had some health problems, but were all going to live. They were born at a stage that meant their mother still could have gotten an abortion, and it occured to me that if someone killed them now it would be murder and a serious crime. Yet because they were outside of their mother they suddenly had rights. I think just because a baby is inside their mother does not mean they are not alive. I believe they should have rights too. Thats just the way I see it, and I’m sorry to rant but this is an issue I feel strongly about. It’s something I would really want a candidate to have. And for the record I’m an independent. I hope I haven’t offended anybody.
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E2MB
in June 19th, 2007 @ 16:07202 – In general, we try not to talk about abortion here anymore, because it just keeps going in the same circles over and over again. We’ve had way too many long and nasty discussions about abortion in the past. But I agree with you.
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Ebeth The Titleless
in June 19th, 2007 @ 16:11Obama all the way
i don’t really like hillary for various reasons, and i really like obama’s book. i think really cares, and if not, then he’s a great liar which could be useful. but cynicism aside, i think he also knows what he’s talking about and really understands what democracy means. violence in videogames? i agree with whoever said that about the age issue…if they’re too young they won’t understand the difference between the game and real life. And i don’t really think little kids should be sitting around playing videogames anyway, as much as i argue with my mom about me doing it, i think some of her exercise and healthy stuff fanatacism has rubbed off on me. If only the teensiest bit. But yeah, once you’re older i think it’s fine. it makes for an exciting game. And violence is a part of life. it’s in the books we read and the movies we see, and what happens in real life too. so i think it’s fine for older kids who can understand that it’s not the answer to all their problems and who can tell the difference between the game and life.
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Ebeth The Titleless
in June 19th, 2007 @ 16:13201-Gore would be cool, but i doubt he’ll run. he doesn’t need to, he’s got plenty of say already, all over the world not just in the US.
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biblioRose
in June 19th, 2007 @ 16:39203- Sorry. I just was explaining why I feel so strongly about it.
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agagabagabag
in June 19th, 2007 @ 18:27180- Aye, Cherry Valley! I was in the Mackenzie clan! Truth! Honor! Aye!
What about you? When’d you go?
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emmatheduck
in June 19th, 2007 @ 18:57188-Boy scouts may be a Christian organizatin, but Girl scouts definitely isn’t. God is mentioned in the Girl Scout promise, but they make it clear that girls can replace that with a different word that’s more appropriate for their religion or just not say it. other than that I can’t think of anything in girl scouts that as to d with religion.
207-my brother went to cherry valley….several years ago.
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Red-tailed HAWK
in June 19th, 2007 @ 19:05208-I_don’t know about that. I read somewhere that they were both started to keep people under a little control back in the 20s or so. I’ll have to look that up…
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 19th, 2007 @ 19:27207-I just went last week. I was in the MacGeyver Clan! Aye! That was the best camp I have ever been to.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 19th, 2007 @ 19:30209-Sorry for double post, but Boy Scouts really isn’t a Christian organization. We have a Christian lenient, but we don’t worhsip God in anything we do. Boy Scouts was started up with the joining of two groups that taught kids about nature and environmental awareness and Lord Baden-Powell, some British soldier guy. They might have been Christians, but they didn’t start it up as a Christian organization.
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emmatheduck
in June 19th, 2007 @ 19:38209-I think Girl Scouts was founded in 1912 (I really should know that…) and Boy Scouts was earlier than that.
211-I thought that Boy Scouts were supposed to be required to believe in a god, or something like that.
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E2MB
in June 19th, 2007 @ 19:54212 – *looks in boy scout handbook* There is a section, however, that lists some popular religions (including atheism) and shows how you can earn a badge for your religion.
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E2MB
in June 19th, 2007 @ 19:54But otherwise, no.
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Vendaval
in June 19th, 2007 @ 20:20The Boy Scouts of America were founded after some business man saw how well behaved the Boy Scouts in the U.K. were. Over there, they were originally a militaristic group.
“Be Prepared” for another world war.
199- So why aren’t you a Democrat? My dad was a registered Republican who voted Democrat for a few years, then changed.
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agagabagabag
in June 19th, 2007 @ 21:24213- What page?
210- OMFSM! l was there last week too! In troop 57! I was the kid who said, “two plus two is five!” after the “everyday geniuses” thing. What troop were you in?
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ultimate jeeves
in June 19th, 2007 @ 21:41But, Ebeth The Titleless, Hilary has a lot of experience! It’s showing in the debates!
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in June 20th, 2007 @ 10:34(210, 216) That’s why MBers need to get Kokopelli for President buttons from Musery Loves Company and wear them at all times. </shameless_promotion>
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ultimate jeeves
in June 20th, 2007 @ 12:39But what if I want to vote for craww?
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E2MB
in June 20th, 2007 @ 12:44216 – Page 413. Check it out.
219 – Then vote for crraw.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 20th, 2007 @ 14:00Look, people, you do know that Christianity as an movement, an idea, and a motive has killed more people than anything else? Even fascism? And I’m not saying we should kill the Christians, I’m saying we should eradicate the Christian religion. Tear down the churches, (evacuate Vatican city though- huge library, biggest collection of pornographic material) outlaw Christian propaganda, educate the masses…
On a different note:
I fail to understand how someone with the brain capacity beyond that of an insect’s can still, after all the bullcrap they’ve done, adhere to the republican party and ideals.
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niugnep
in June 20th, 2007 @ 21:15FS: I beg to differ. I believe that both money and power far outdo Christianity.
Violent video games: I really don’t think the government has the right to regulate violent video games. Trans-fats either. At some point people have to take care of themselves.
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts: Even if Christianity doesn’t play a big role in these organizations they are still Christian organizations. As an atheist I would feel pretty uncomfortable with a pledge that mentioned God.
Elections: My one issue is the environment. I don’t think people consider the consequences of not doing anything about global warming enough. However, I don’t think that even if we elected someone like Gore president that we would be able to do anything about it because the fossil fuel industries are so powerful.
I notice that people always use Hillary to refer to Clinton, while all male candidates are referred to by their last names. I don’t really buy into theories that stupid stuff like the way we refer to people contributes to sexism, nor do I really care if the way we reffer to people is the extent of sexism, but nevertheless I think it would be a cool way to point out a little bit of a double standard to refer to all of our presidential candidates by their first names.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in June 20th, 2007 @ 22:12(222) Hillary Clinton’s campaign encourages people to refer to her by her first name. That’s the name she uses on her posters and buttons. I assume it’s because we’ve already had a President Clinton, and she wants to put a certain distance between herself and her still-controversial husband.
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224
Cat's Meow
in June 20th, 2007 @ 22:55If Hillary gets elected president, then we’ll have had that position in the Clinton and Bush families for 4 presidents in a row. Wasn’t family monarchies one of the things that we were trying to avoid at the very beginning? George Washington even stepped down after a while to prevent himself from becoming a king.
222- We say the pledge of alligience every day at school, and that has God’s name in it. Are you in favor of getting rid of our school system because it has a pledge with God’s name it? (And I’m an aethiest)
And also, you say that people have to take care of themselves on the issue of violent video games. That’s true, to a certain extent, but who remembers the Muse article on mirror neurons? It said that if you play lots of violent video games, your brain might start to associate fun with violence and guns, and if that happens you could be a violent person. If it goes too far some innocent bystander could be caught in the crossfire. In this issue it’s not just about saving one person, but about protecting everyone around.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 21st, 2007 @ 09:57224: Yes, the entire american school system, pledge included, should be radically reformed.
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Nickelback
in June 21st, 2007 @ 10:21The pledge of allegiance is complete bull. There’s no point in saying it at school ever. Especially if first graders are saying it and have no idea what a pledge is or what allegiance is.
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Red-tailed HAWK
in June 21st, 2007 @ 13:07202-ALRIGHT, you’ve got the conversation rolling again…
The way I see it, if the mother is going to have a terrible life afterwards and maybe the kid will too, if she can’t support the kid, why have the kid? We don’t need to fill up the orphanages, and we don’t want the kid to grow up in a bad situation.
Once the kid’s out, you have to deal with it because it IS a life. But when it’s still a few cells in the mother it doesn’t seem like much of a life. And no, once the baby is a LONG way through the developement you don’t want to kill it.
Does that make sense? I’m not trying to sound mean…
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E2MB
in June 21st, 2007 @ 13:19STOP!!!!!!! STOP!!!!!!!!! WE ARE NOT HAVING THE STUPID ABORTION ARGUMENT AGAIN!!!!!! PLEASE, PEOPLE!!!!!!!!
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E2MB
in June 21st, 2007 @ 13:21224 – Yes, violent video games shouldn’t be played. I watched someone play a violent video game once and I found myself imagining me holding a machine gun shooting people. Brrr! I stopped watching right away.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 21st, 2007 @ 13:24227: You make perfect sense and shouldn’t be afraid of ‘sounding mean’. The world is too afraid to appear intolerant or cruel that they avoid making necessary decisions and comments on certain subjects. The world is overpopulated anyway, and growing cells are only growing cells. Have sex, and try to use condoms, pills, whatever, and if all else fails and you really don’t want a baby, abort.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 21st, 2007 @ 13:27229: Violent video games are a form of entertainment. I play some myself.
(ignore this if you will, but I do want to make a little jab: and someone who defends the idea and movement that killed most people has no place in bashing virtual violence)
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E2MB
in June 21st, 2007 @ 13:40231 – I can’t help it if stupid idiots take the ideas I belive in, warp them, and use them as excuses to kill people!
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Lizzie
in June 21st, 2007 @ 13:45225- I’m currently taking a US History course by correspondence, and it is the most inane thing on the planet. These were some of the questions on the final review:
# In the business cycle, a depression is a period of1. mild economic growth.
2. general prosperity.
3. business failures.
4. high consumer spending.What connected the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean?
1. Panama Canal
2. transcontinental railroad
3. Strait of Magellan
4. Baja CaliforniaSweatshops were places where
1. employees took steam baths.
2. workers made athletic clothes.
3. cookies and candies were made.
4. employees worked long hours at low wages.I wanted to shoot myself x_x.. This is supposed to be a junior-level course. Not a kindergartener one. If that’s typical of American school systems (it is definitely NOT of my school) then I can completely see why everyone thinks that American schools are so bad.
What’s really frightening is that there’s homeschoolers out there whose entire education consists of these courses *shudder*..231 – It’s amazing what some people consider to be “entertainment”..
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in June 21st, 2007 @ 13:47(231) Not that “entertainment” is necessarily “harmless.”
I’m not taking sides on the video games issue, merely expressing my weariness with the “it’s just entertainment” argument that is used by everyone from Rush Limbaugh to psychic hotlines to corporate media CEOs as if “entertainment” were a wholly benign construct without consequences of any kind.
</soapbox>(233) Yikes! I wonder how many people answer them incorrectly.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 21st, 2007 @ 14:57234: My argument procedes, however, to say that violent video games do not induce people to go out and kill unless they have serious issues and are not likely to do so anyway. Maybe kids go out and shoot people because it’s so easy for them to get a gun, huh? Or because the president seems to think he can bomb and kill as many people as he wants to?
And as for Rush Limbaugh, the man is an abomination. Check out these new products:
Ravings from Rehab
His personal memoirs, “Drugs: maybe that’s why I’m such an a**hole”
His social commentary, “How it’s supposed to be: poor junkies get hard jail time, rich junkies get public sympathy”
and the all revealing documentary, “told you so: the media hides the truth that black athletes are inferior”
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E2MB
in June 21st, 2007 @ 15:06234 – Lots. It’s scary.
Question 1 from my science final:
Which statement is not part of the cell theory?
A. The cell is the basic unit of life.
B. All living thins are composed of cells.
C. Only cells can produce more cells.
D. Cells are phones for talking to friends.My science teacher informed the class he was dissapointed that 4 people got this question wrong.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 21st, 2007 @ 15:11236: Dammit. You guys really need a school reform. Pronto.
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E2MB
in June 21st, 2007 @ 15:36237 – Somehow I was expecting you’d say that.
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E2MB
in June 21st, 2007 @ 15:48FS! I didn’t know you were a member of the PoPoPo!
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 21st, 2007 @ 15:52239: I’m very efficient, aren’t I?
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 21st, 2007 @ 15:59216-I was in Troop 228! I was the short blond kid with glasses!
237-LOL. How did I know you would say that? Where have you been, FS? I was getting worried about you. Also, FS, I think we should put aside our religious differences. We NEED to find an argument that we can be on the same side for, don’t ya think? I WILL NOT argue about religion anymore. I also had no idea you were a member of the PoPoPo! Also, I think Rusch Limbaugh is a great guy, but let’s not get started on that.
232-Neither can I.
I will NOT post here until I find an argument that maybe FS and I can both agree on.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 21st, 2007 @ 16:03Okay, now THIS is really my last post.
222-That was a stupid comment about the Boy Scouts! (No offense-you aren’t, but that comment was) If you feel uncomfortable with saying a pledge that includes God, do you say the Pledge of Allegiance? BSA is not a Christian organization, we have a Christian lenient because this nation is a Christian nation(thank God it is! or else we’d be in some real trouble)
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Lizzie
in June 21st, 2007 @ 16:50242 – explain exactly how this nation is a Christian nation. I think I missed that part. Is it in the bill of rights? Right next to the establishment clause?
and you mean we aren’t in real trouble already? Can I come live in your world?
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Elizabeth
in June 21st, 2007 @ 17:09222- about elections: Gore isn’t running, I heard from my mom, she said that Gore didn’t want to be a part of all the campaigning and all because he would be asked lots of unimportant questions and he wanted people to stay focused on environmental stuff like global warming and not form an opinion of him as a person because of the way the media portrays him, then either completely agree or disagree with him and all of his opinions. I like that, some people are much more effective as just people and not presidents.
236- you think that’s bad?
in 8th grade we had a test that was supposed to be all simple and everyone aces it…yeah right. here are the questions that I remember:
What country do you live in?
What continent do you live on?
Who was the first president of the United states?
What is the capital of New York? (I live in NY)there were a fe others…gues how many people passed this? (not “got hundreds on” but PASSED for god’s sake!) only 80%! I’m not kidding the teacher just about killed some people (“oops, I mix up continent and country sometimes!” *coughretardcough*)
241- Do you like Swiss people? or anything Swiss for that matter? I’ll argue about Swiss cheese and you and FS can argue back and you’ll be on the same side, for once
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E2MB
in June 21st, 2007 @ 18:31The Jack-in-the-box franchise has a photo of “uppity swiss people” on their trays.
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Vendaval
in June 21st, 2007 @ 18:50FS- How do you know that the US school system needs radical reform if you haven’t been through it? I think European systems are very different, but not better or worse, because I can’t see both sides of the argument. How much do you know?
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niugnep
in June 21st, 2007 @ 19:09224. I don’t want to do away with Girl Scouts, I would just be uncomfortable with the pledge.
And actually, I don’t say the pledge of allegiance in school. What sort of backwards place do I come from? I guess I can’t tell y’all that.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 21st, 2007 @ 19:21243-Well, I will explain it as simply as I can(which shouldn’t be hard)
1. Our president is Christian.
2. Our founding fathers were Christian.
3. In 2001, 80% of the US population was Christian, while only 15% percent was atheist.
4. Even though we have religious freedom, our government laws were based off of Christian ideals.
244-LOL
246-Good point!
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Sobriquet
in June 21st, 2007 @ 21:02248- Our constitution also makes sure to separate church and state, something this administration seems to forget. In fact, they seem to have thrown the entire document out the window. And our laws were not based off cristian ideals, who gave you that idea? They were based on what was morally right. What laws can you think of that are based off cristian ideals, and what’s wrong with being a nation that is not mostly christian?
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Cat's Meow
in June 21st, 2007 @ 22:57249-You’re right. Any pledge that seems to support ANY religion shouldn’t be in schools. Heck, making 1st graders take a pledge of alligience to a country when they don’t understand half the words doesn’t make sense anyways.
I don’t understand why we say the pledge anyways. In my opinion, it’s a waste of 30 seconds of time that could be spent otherwise.
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biblioRose
in June 21st, 2007 @ 22:58249- The thing is most christian ideals are morally correct I believe, so even if our founding fathers didn’t intend for it to be that way, they are sort of christian ideals though not intentionally.
227- How do you think a woman who could never have kids naturally can raise a child? Most children don’t go to orphanages, they go strait to adoptive parents, if their biological parents are responsible. And If you are so desperate not to have a child that you would resort to killing it, then you shouldn;t get into that sort of situation anyway. These are just my opinion, and I don’t mean to offend anyone.
22- Exactly! So if you are uncomfortable saying those things you just don’t say them. Very simple. BOy scouts are going to completly change for people, so sometimes people just need to not join and accept it.
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agagabagabag
in June 21st, 2007 @ 23:00241- Sorry, you ring no bells. But surely you remember that yell?
220- That is false. Atheism isn’t there at all. And most of the awards are christian. They treat the different, dinky little sects with their puny differences like different religions. The count is:
1 for Baha’i,
1 for Buddhism,
1 for Hinduism,
1 for Islam,
1 for Judaism,
1 for Zoroastrianism,
none for Atheism,
and yet there are 24 for Christianity.
That’s not fair.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 07:24I can comment on the american school system by seeing the level of education that exists among americans I know. I know very few americans that have made it through the US school system and have an education on par with that of european’s. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but that’s the way it is.
The USA, a Christian nation? Well, first of all, only half of it would actually call it a ‘Christian nation’. However, consider the following:
1) A Christian nation is a bad thing
2) the USA is doing more bad than good
3) the USA was founded by religious zealots who were so fanatical that the _english_ kicked them out. I mean, how uptight do you have to be for the bloody BRITS to kick you out???
America could certainly only benefit by a secularization. a Christian Nation is not a good thing. And the so called ‘Christian morals’ that are ethically correct coincide with basic human morals, that exist regardless of creed or color.As for Rush Limbaugh… “The reports of prisoner abuse in Abu Grahib are nothing more than frat boy pranks”. Yeah, listen Rush, shut the hell up and go get yourself DTed.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 07:29As for Hillary, she’s dangerous for the democrats. She could incite republicans to unite for a stand, resulting with yet another victory for those mysoginistic bastards.
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Vendaval
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 11:12Well, it wasn’t the Puritans who wrote the Constitution! Jefferson had a Koran that he used to look for ideas about how to run a society. I think all religions basically stress the same ideas of a moral code, and you can find any one of them in a civil code if you look hard enough.
I feel that US education isn’t the best either, but it seems that you can take anything and make yourself an instant expert. Maybe that’s just a skill of a good debater.
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niugnep
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 14:33FS, you say that the Puritans were “uptight” because they chose to get kicked out of Brittain instead of convert. I think that at that time an outspoken atheist such as yourself might get kicked out. Would you stay or go?
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Shadowkat
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 14:34190-Ron Paul!!!!!!!
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Sobriquet
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 14:42253- I’m afraid you’re probably right about the US school system. That’s why so many on museblog try to supplement our education in other ways. As for Hillary, now, if ever, is when a woman could be elected in this chauvinistic country; but it would be horrible if the dems lose this election because they pick a candidate like Hillary or Obama.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 14:59256: No, I’m saying that the Puritans had to be really uptight for the British to kick them out. Because the british are veeeery uptight. And you have to be really, really, really uptight.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 16:26(248) Donaldo, a small factual correction to item #3: The 15% figure you mention did not refer to “atheists.” The category in the ARIS* was actually “no religion.” The two designations are not synonymous.
In fact, self-described atheists added up to only 0.4% of survey respondents. Agnostics totaled 0.5%. Since the survey was conducted by telephone, critics have argued these numbers were undercounted, since many people in the U.S. might not admit their atheism or agnosticism to an interviewer on account of negative attitudes toward their beliefs.
*ARIS – American Religious Identification Survey
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canon in D
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 16:38259. How can you use the British as an example of your ideals? The British were Christian, too. They just couldn’t even tolerate fellow christians with slightly different beliefs.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 16:42261: Nooo, but the puritans who got thrown out where even [i]more[i] fanatical than the British. Historical fact.
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canon in D
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 16:49262. so if it’s okay to get rid of fanaticals, you might just want to watch your back.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 19:42I have changed my mind because you people [snip! no need to be insulting]
249-There is nowhere in the Constitution that it says anything about separation of church and state.
There is a law in the Constitution(see below) that says there is no law where the government can control our religion. So it is unlawful to take prayer out of schools and take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance.
250-THE PLEDGE DOES NOT SUPPORT ANY RELIGION!!! GET IT IN YOUR HEAD PEOPLE!!! READ THIS FROM THE CONSTITUTION:
‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…’
You are probably too single-minded to understand this, so I will explain it. This means we cannot make laws to worship or support a religion, so the pledge does not support a religion!
BTW, what are you? [snipped for same reason] Seriously! You say we shouldn’t say the pledge? I find that traitorous to the USA!!!THIS NATION WOULD BE MUCH BETTER IF WE FOLLOWED THE TEN COMMANDMENTS!
Patrick Henry, known for his “give me liberty or give me death” speech said this:
Amongst other strange things said of me, I hear it is said by the deists that I am one of the number; and indeed, that some good people think I am no Christian. This thought gives me much more pain than the appellation of Tory; because I think religion of infinitely higher importance than politics; and I find much cause to reproach myself that I have lived so long, and have given no decided and public proofs of my being a Christian. But, indeed, my dear child, this is a character which I prize far above all this world has, or can boast.Alexander Hamilton said this:
In my opinion, the present consitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banner bona fide must we combat our political foes, rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provided for amendments. By these general views of the subject have my reflections been guided. I now offer you the outline of the plan they have suggested. Let an association be formed to be denominated “The Christian Constitutional Society,” its object to be first: The support of the Christian religion. second: The support of the United States.Ben Franklin said this:
I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe; that he governs it by his Providence; that be ought to be worshipped; that the. most acceptable service we can render to him is doing good to his other children; that the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as be left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is like to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it.Note that he thinks Jesus was wonderful, even if he isn’t really Son of God, and since he has no studies of it, he doesn’t criticize Christianity.
Samuel Adams wrote this in his Rights of the Colonists:
II. The Rights of the Colonists as Christians.The right to freedom being the gift of the Almighty…The rights of the colonists as Christians…may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutions of The Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, said this:
I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.He, like Benjamin Franklin were Deists. They were Christians, but they rejected Christ’s divinity.
George Washington wrote this when he was 20:
Bless my family, kindred, friends and country, be our God & guide this day and for ever for his sake, who lay down in the Grave and arose again for us, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.He also said this in a speech:
You do well to wish to learn our arts and our ways of life and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do everything they can to assist you in this wise intention.Our founding fathers were definitely Christians.
More info: Abe Lincoln was also a devout Christian, as was Martin Luther King Jr.(he was named after Martin Luther)
263: LOL
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Cat's Meow
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 20:06264-The pledge may not support any one religion, but it supports religion in general. Like it or not, there ARE people in this country who don’t believe in God, or believe in a different god than the one in the pledge.
And I’m an American, as I assume you are. But last I checked, I don’t need to swear a pledge to be an American. I’m not opposed to people taking a pledge, if they feel it necessary. I’m opposed to children being instructed to pledge alligience to anything in first grade, like what happens at local elementary schools, at least around here.
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Lizzie
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 20:34264 – and you do realize that there was no mention of God in the original pledge, even though it was written by a Baptist minister? That part was added during the Cold War as a jab against the USSR. Additionally, it can be seen as an endorsement of monotheism over polytheism, and male deities over female. It substantially weakens the pledge; athiests can argue that since God does not exist, the “nation, under God” does
not exist, and so for them the pledge is null and void. Religious advocates have also used it as an excuse for discriminating against non-religious people, saying that religion is a required part of American life (which, by the way, it is not). The phrase also weakens the pledge for the religious, as they can view it as an opt-out cause; their allegiance to the nation is only binding when the nation acts in accordance with their perception of God’s will.
Also, it’s pointless and morally wrong for young children to be taught to say a pledge that they do not understand, having young children recite by rote the Pledge trivializes the commitment it requires, and insults the honor and wastes the time of children who view their first statement of it as binding.
Also, why pledge allegiance to a flag, rather than an embodiment of ideals, such as the constitution?
Also, since you seem to be fine with the idea of “under God” in the pledge as not representing religion, what if athiests were in the majority and inserted “one nation, under no God” into the pledge? woudl that still not be establishing a religion, or lack thereof?
And finally, I fail to follow your reasoning: the pledge does not support a religion even though it clearly states America follows a God (ie is “under God”) because the first amendment says that that would be unconstitutional? Have you ever heard of people doing unconstitutional things? Such as search and seizure without warrent (see: Patriot Act) or cruel and unusual punishment (see: death penalty) or not allowing a person a trial (see: treatment of terrorists, communists, etcetcetc)?
nah, it just doesn’t happen here in the good ol’ US of A. /sarcasm
Also, laws mandating people to say the pledge are unconstitutional, as ruled by the Supreme Court (see West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette), as it is against some religions, notably that of the Jehova’s Witnesses.
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agagabagabag
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 20:37264- In all of that, you didn’t answer me.
Wow, FS! For one not from this country, you sure care about it! And don’t you live in a christian nation also? Your’e from Sweden, right? And are you Asatru or Atheist?
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Cat's Meow
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 20:48266-Thank you, Lizzie. That’s exactly what I was trying to say, but you said in much fancier language. xD Nice job.
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agagabagabag
in June 22nd, 2007 @ 23:06232- Yes you can, because you vote for them. You’re a freaking republican!
New ht. In my core class, we had to write essays on whether Alexander the great was a hero or a villain. I chose villain. Apparently, so did this girl who wasn’t the brightest lightbulb in the box. At open house, her dad, who was even duller than she, saw her essay. “Why was he bad?” “He killed hundreds of thousands of people!” “Honey, they would have died anyway.” This was their conversation in a blurb.
Can you believe these dullards? Anyway, the point is that l would have liked to say, “Would it be okay to kill me, because l’m going to die anyway?”
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niugnep
in June 23rd, 2007 @ 09:21264. (Donaldo) Should we run our country exactly how the founding fathers would have run it just because those were their intentions? If there were flaws in their plan should we not correct those? It has been over 200 years since those quotes were written, and many values and beliefs have changed since then. Do we really need to tie ourselves to the Christian vision of people long dead?
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biblioRose
in June 23rd, 2007 @ 11:33God does not neccesarily repersent christianity. A god is any sort of deity. It can repersent a number of deifferent religions. I’m not saying it’s okay to have that in the pledge, just pointing that out. And how does that refer to male over female gods? I don’t exactly understand that. I think god is genderless.
Does anypne want to talk about any of Europes new leaders? Or old ones, like Tony Blair. I really liked Tony Blair and thought he was truly a great leader.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 23rd, 2007 @ 11:54267: I’m Swiss. You would not believe how many americans make that mistake. And I am Asatruar. If anyone’s wondering, I am able to give you a condensation of what our moral values are.
The Nine Noble Virtues:The Odininc Rite:
Courage
Truth
Honour
Fidelity
Discipline
Hospitality
Self-Reliance
Industriousness
PerseveranceThe Asatru Folk Assembly:
Strength is better than weakness
Courage is better than cowardice
Joy is better than guilt
Honour is better than dishonour
Freedom is better than slavery
Kinship is better than alienation
Realism is better than dogmatism
Vigor is better than lifelessness
Ancestry is better than universalismThe Nine Charges:
To maintain candour and fidelity in love and devotion to the tried friend: though he strike me I will do him no scathe.
Never to make wrongsome oath: for great and grim is the reward for the breaking of plighted troth.
To deal not hardly with the humble and the lowly.
To remember the respect that is due to great age.
To suffer no evil to go unremedied and to fight against the enemies of Faith, Folk and Family: my foes I will fight in the field, nor will I stay to be burnt in my house.
To succour the friendless but to put no faith in the pledged word of a stranger people.
If I hear the fool’s word of a drunken man I will strive not: for many a grief and the very death groweth from out such things.
To give kind heed to dead men: straw dead, sea dead or sword dead.
To abide by the enactments of lawful authority and to bear with courage the decrees of the Norns.Yeah. That’s about it.
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biblioRose
in June 23rd, 2007 @ 12:43Thats very interesting.A lot of the values are similiar to christian values.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 23rd, 2007 @ 12:50273: Christianity is a big potpourri of pagan myths.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 23rd, 2007 @ 12:53Oh and there’s a fundamental difference in the values, as shown by “realism is better than dogmatism”
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biblioRose
in June 23rd, 2007 @ 12:56274- And in what light are they portrayed?
Will so someone respond to 271 please?
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 23rd, 2007 @ 16:54272-Thanks for posting that. I never understood your system of values, or if you even had one! I doubted you did for a long time. A ton of those values are similar to Christian values.
274-*sarcasm*Oh yes! Of course! That makes complete sense*sarcasm ends* even though the Christians hated Pagans for a long time. The only way they could get the Pagans to convert was by letting them party and not being so uptight. Yeah, what light are they portrayed in? What evidence do you have that they are Pagan myths?
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 24th, 2007 @ 03:25277: Because the bible stories are found with slight variations in pre-christian pagan myths and stories. Jesus’ life, for example, was almost identical to that of Horus and Mithras. Christian holidays were pagan festivals. Even the symbology isn’t original. The cross was a celtic and egyptian symbol before it was corrupted by Christianity.
For example, the story of Lazarus. One of the many feats that Mithras allegedly performed was the revival of a man named El-Azar-Us, on Lazarus.
Both Mithras and Horus died (according to some stories Mithras was crucified) and rose after 3 days.
The 25th of December is the birthdate of the following gods: Adone, Baccab, Bacchus, Freyr, Huitzilopochtli, Mithras, Oro, Osiris, Quetzalcoatl and Tammuz.
Mithras had 12 disciples, and when he rose again after dying, his disciples claimed: “Rejoice, you god has risen from the dead, his pains and suffering shall be your salvation”. Sounds suspiciously Christian to me.
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Sweet Melpomene
in June 24th, 2007 @ 10:00264- For one, it makes the pledge discriminatory against atheists. Please excuse the horrendous grammar of that sentence. For two [is this a valid expression?], are you saying that just because the founding fathers were Christian, the entire country should have been made a Christian theocracy?!? At least they had the respect for other beliefs [or the lack thereof] that led them to write that lovely bit of the First Amendment….! At least they were wisely aware that times do change and a theocracy would not, first and foremost, suit the needs of the people for all time. Change is imminent.
277- Because pretty much all mythology is more or less parallel. It’s not just Christian mythology and Hellenistic mythology that are suspiciously similar.
278- You forgot my favourite! Sir Isaac Newton was also born 25 December! *calculus love*
Bleah to values. Who cares if you have values? Hardly anyone commits her or himself to the values [s]he professes anyway. Seriously. So why even bother writing them out and professing them as if the values themselves make one a more productive, respectful individual? Is it not enough to simply do?
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 24th, 2007 @ 11:26279: I do know that most people don’t live according to any values, even if they do claim to… Actually this makes everyone a satanist.
I chose this spirituality because it’s values that are most aligned with what I already feel and try to act like. Honour is important for me, as is courage, realism, and industriousness, and all the other values.
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Shadowkat
in June 24th, 2007 @ 11:27Forgive me if this hasn’t already been said, as I didn’t really feel like reading everything that has, but there are rumors that the Bible started out as a few true stories about miracles, disciples, and such, but then got expanded into this huge book that so many people wrote in, that it got really exaggerated, and no longer was the thing as which it started out. For example, Noah’s Ark. It says in the Bible that there was a man named Noah, specially chosen by God, who was to build a huge ship, get pairs of every species of animal, and put the pairs, himself, and his wife and children on the ship. New findings have shown that this may just be a gross exaggeration of something that actually happened: a flood in Syria (or somewhere around there), that basically wiped out an entire city, and a merchant living in the city, named Noah, was washed out to the sea (whichever one is nearest there, but I think it was the Dead Sea) on one of his boats. This made it look like he was in the ocean or a very large flood, especially since, in the Dead Sea, there’s salt water. He and his family, along with some sheep, chickens, and such, (also on the boat) eventually washed ashore somewhere far away from their home, and told this story. It got taken and expanded upon for so long, that it became the story of “Noah’s Ark”. This may have happened to many other Bible stories, as well.
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Sweet Melpomene
in June 24th, 2007 @ 12:05280- Interesting take on things. Makes sense to some extent… [the first two sentences, that is] I’m not trying to be antagonistic when I say this, but… If you already live that way, why do you feel the need to belong to that spirituality? If you already behave in that manner, why bother with a code written by someone else? Aside from wanting to associate with like-minded people, of course.
281- Gilgamesh ^_^
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 24th, 2007 @ 12:12282: Because I think that every person needs some sort of spirituality in their life, that doesn’t have the negative effects that Christianity, Islam, and to some extent, Buddhism and Judaism have. And it’s also because the mythology is kickass.
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biblioRose
in June 24th, 2007 @ 12:17283- I think all religions can be positively followed if you don’t go extreme and stick with your values.
278- Thats intersting, but the cross is the symbol of christianity because that was what Jesus was crucified on.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 24th, 2007 @ 12:34284: Yes, but the cross existed as a symbol before Christianity. And I actually seriously doubt Jesus actually existed. The “legend” of jesus, (more a myth than a legend) was part of a small jewish sect of no importance. And it should have stayed that way.
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canon in D
in June 24th, 2007 @ 12:50280. I don’t understand why that makes everyone a satanist. Does that mean that you believe in Satan? It also seems to me that you make alot of statements without backing them up. And when you DO back yourslf up, many times your examples don’t really make any sense. For example, what many people were saying was that your “values” were similar to christian values, they didn’t say that they were EXACTLY the same. So pointing out the singular difference didn’t really make sense.
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canon in D
in June 24th, 2007 @ 12:54285. so you think that one day some one just decided “oh, let’s just just make a myth, and worship the fictional character at the center of it!” Hmmmmm…..
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 24th, 2007 @ 13:00287: Uh yes. That’s basically what happened. How do cults get started today? Christianity is like the Church Of The Reverend Moon just with an overwhelming following.
And you’re splitting hairs. About satanism, modern satanists believe in following their human instincts, because those are most fulfilling, spiritually, mentally and physically.
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canon in D
in June 24th, 2007 @ 13:16288. Are you a Satanist? That religion sounds really nice and safe. “My human instincts tell me to anhialate this race because they are not equal to me” or “my human instincts tell me to run that guy over because he is in my way and I might have to stop rather quickly, and that might cause pain to my physical being” Sometimes you have to control what your “human instincts” want to do. Streangth, remember?
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Sweet Melpomene
in June 24th, 2007 @ 13:17283- Ah. Righto, thanks for being clear and not defensive about it ^_^
285- I think he probably existed. I think it was that historian Josephus who mentioned him… Then again, Josephus was Jewish, but I don’t think he was an Essene…
w00t indeed for mythology. Until people start taking it as truth. If I started speaking in Klingon and following their practices as a religion, I’d be thrown into therapy.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 24th, 2007 @ 13:36289: Dude. Morality and ethics are also totally human.
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biblioRose
in June 24th, 2007 @ 14:37291- I think he means that often instincts are not best. For Example when you are jealous or mad your instinct might be to destroy something.
285- I know it exisited before, but it is used for that reason not to copy any other religion.
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FrigidSymphony .:[Blackjack Guillotine]:.
in June 24th, 2007 @ 14:58292: and is destruction always bad? Look, animals work. They don’t destroy the environment, they don’t lead massacres, they just live. And it works.
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canon in D
in June 24th, 2007 @ 15:52293. ooooo! Let’s all live like animals! Let’s all go out into the wilderness and live like apes, bears, and wolves! Actually, chimpanzees (and many other animals) kill each other, and elephants trample and destroy their environment.
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canon in D
in June 24th, 2007 @ 16:15And if you believe in evolution, then we ARE animals.
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biblioRose
in June 24th, 2007 @ 16:48293- I understand what you mean and agree that can be good just if someome steals your girlfriend and you want to kill them it would be a bad idea to succumb to your instincts. I believe it works both ways.
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zyviva
in June 24th, 2007 @ 17:55293/294- For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.
296- unless you mean kidnap, i think you mean something other than “steal”.
it amuses me that if an animal decides to kill a fellow member of its pack, people declare it instict. however if a human kills a fellow human, people declare it a Symptom of the Degeneration of Society in General and the Lack of Morals in That Person’s Ethnic Group in Particular.
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Axa
in June 25th, 2007 @ 00:26Animals killing each other and people killing each other are two different things. In most cases it’s territorial or what have you with animals i.e it is done to further their chances of survival and is not so much decided as it is simply done. With humans, I would say the greater amount of homicides are not done to improve one’s life. Animals often act for the greater good; I don’t know of an instance where they kill another of their pack (please elaborate) but it is feasible that it would be left behind if only because it is a threat to safety from outside predators and is a burden.
That said, contributing behavior to an ethic group is absurd.
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Sweet Melpomene
in June 25th, 2007 @ 07:10295- Almost! Even if you don’t, we ARE animals. Biologically. Besides, the lovely thing about evolution is, because it’s a scientific theory, people don’t need to believe in it for it to work. Kinda like gravity xD
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niugnep
in June 25th, 2007 @ 09:09It seems to me that what makes people killing each other different from animals killing each other is that we have all implicitely agreed not to kill each other by living in a society which punishes those who kill each other. It really is a good system. You don’t get to kill anyone, but you also don’t get killed.
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Elizabeth
in June 25th, 2007 @ 10:48294- well at least they don’t trample, destroy, pour chemicals into and put concrete ontop of their environment like one species I know…
295- what else would we be? the living world is split up into 2 diferent categories, if we’re not animals, we’re plants and i think i’d rather call myself an animal than a plant…
298- what do you mean? I think our war in Iraq is very territorial and we are trying to do this for our own greater good (I’m not saying it’s working but still) we are working just like animals, but we as the human race are too arrogant to admit that we are like animalsI guess I’m sounding very contrary to everyone… well don’t take offence, I just don’t agree that humans are above any other species
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Axa
in June 25th, 2007 @ 13:20301) But a greater deal of thought is put into it. Also, territory fights aren’t as large scale as what’s going on in Iraq, and animals don’t enlist the other help of outside forces or weapons.
I’m not disagreeing that humans have animalistic tendencies left over, or that there are similarities, just that it doesn’t work to say that an animal killing another animals is the same as humans doing so. Because when you get right down to it animals don’t have the capacity to kill in cold blood and humans do.
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dark duke of darkness
in June 25th, 2007 @ 15:17argh. i have no time to respond. ill be back after my guitar lesson tho!
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Shadowkat
in June 25th, 2007 @ 15:49Hey, guys, why don’t we talk about the 2008 Presidential Election? I know we kind of have, but let’s state why we like a given candidate by posting our views on the current topics of interest, so there’d be more than just, “_____ for President!!!”…you know?
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biblioRose
in June 25th, 2007 @ 16:11By steal I meant that is probably the way boys would see it.
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Sweet Melpomene
in June 25th, 2007 @ 16:39Mayhaps a new thread is in order? There are over 300 comments…
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Red-tailed HAWK
in June 25th, 2007 @ 16:43306-The GAPAs have been trying to make a point for a couple of weeks, and don’t honor that any more…
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Vendaval
in June 25th, 2007 @ 21:53264-This Nation Would Also be Much Better If people followed any moral code exactly. And the founding fathers also left plenty of room open for change in our constitution. It’s a living document.
-Someone said that “under God” is a problem because it excludes the possibility that there is no god, It also shuts out religions with more than one God.
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niugnep
in June 26th, 2007 @ 11:57308. I think that strict moral codes tend to be too rigid anyway. I think it is better for individuals to learn to make moral judgements based on specific circumstances.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 26th, 2007 @ 12:27278-But there are many forms of our Bible stories in other religions too! Like Hindu, Buddhism, Muslim, etc. ANd maybe Paganism is just a potpourri of Christian truths!!!! Maybe the Pagans just took after the Christians, instead of the Christians taking after the Pagans. Also, Christians have no proof that Jesus was born on December 25th!! They just pulled a number out of a hat, I guess. Or something. There is no proof that Christ was born even in the month of December. He could have been born in May for all we know!!!!
299-No offense, but I did not find any logic in that statement at all.
301-We could be many other things beside plants and animals-we could be protists, fungi, eubacteria, or archaebacteria.And here is an idea for an argument: If evolution IS true(I am not saying it is, I am just being hypothetical), then how come, if we are animals, we set ourselves to a higher standard than them? Why do we act more civilized than them, if we are alike? In Christianity, God gave Adam and Eve as well as all the future generations superiority over the animals. PLEASE if you want to argue about this DO NOT let this boil down to an argument over whether or not evolution is true. I WILL NOT argue about that.
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Elizabeth
in June 26th, 2007 @ 13:15307- what’s this point? I’m afraid I must have missed it…
308- well then maybe they should change it to “One nation under (god(s))” so the word god is optional, as is the s on the end of the word god. Confusing? yes. but politically correct and it wouldn’t change the way people have said the pledge in the past…
310( responce to 301)- oh yes, I forgot about those… *remembers 8th grade bio class* i guess i would count them as plants though
310- I wouldn’t say we set ourselves to higher standards, just different standards. Sure we have greater technology and all that, but we also have to work a lot harder for it. I mean, cats (in the wild, that is) get to sleep and lie around 18 hours of the day, and they don’t go hungry, do they? (no, they don’t) Very few animals work anywhere near as much as humans do because all they have to do is feed themselves, they don’t have to make money to pay for insurance or medical or cars or…anything. I always thought being a cat would be very pleasant.
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Shadowkat
in June 26th, 2007 @ 14:31Fine, guys, ignore me…
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Red-tailed HAWK
in June 26th, 2007 @ 15:17311-A point that people were trying to popo to get a new thread each time. And the new thing is you get a new thread when either it takes too long to load or the GAPAs feel it has been around long enough. Maybe they will make a new one next month. They probably don’t think we need two HT threads in one month…
312-People feel tired of that and want to give it a rest…Elections are a long ways off, and I’m sure in a couple of weeks one of the candidates will say something stupid and the blog will be full of posts about it…
RtH
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Shadowkat
in June 26th, 2007 @ 15:44313-Lol…fine, but it’s kind of important…
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Sweet Melpomene
in June 26th, 2007 @ 16:34310- Yes, maybe Pagan religions are a potpourri of Christian myths. IF THEY HAD TRAVELED IMPOSSIBLE DISTANCES IN TIME AND SPACE IN ORDER TO COPY THEM. Geez, history, dude. It’s the chronology…
And, to your other questions: because we can. Because we have evolved the ability to do so.
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Fox With Drops of Rubies
in June 27th, 2007 @ 04:57310- We have a higher standard? Please inform me who set off an atomic bomb at Hiroshima? And then decided to experament a little and set off another at Nagasaki? When was the last time bears did that?
Also, christianity is a young religion. One, like the Norse religion, is an old one. In the norse mythology, Hel is the goddess of death. Hell is the christian afterlife and torture chamber. Please remember that time is a factor here. Which came first, the old Pagan religions or the new christian one? It’s not a million dollar question.
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Fox With Drops of Rubies
in June 27th, 2007 @ 04:59I dn’t like any of the presidental candidates. Honest, next to some of them, Koko is a saint.
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Ebeth The Titleless
in June 27th, 2007 @ 06:57I like Obama. Mostly because of his book. i didn’t know too much about him before i read it. But honestly, i think half the reason i like him (and half the reason he’s so popular) is just because he doesn’t seem like a politician.
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Fox With Drops of Rubies
in June 27th, 2007 @ 08:11I haven’t read the book. What does he say. (Is he a capitalist?)
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 27th, 2007 @ 16:19315-That doesn’t answer my question. Sure, we might have “evolved” to be able to, but that doesn’t mean we want to. You may be able to do the dishes, but that doesn’t mean you want to.
316-Sheesh dude!! Read what I wrote more carefully! I said we set ourselves to a higher standard, I never said we are at a higher standard!!!
316(again)-I do not know waht you are talking about. Christianity came before Paganism!!!!!! Read post 315. Also, can I just say that all of the “gods” that the Norse had were BUILT. They were built by MEN. In the Bible, after Moses comes down the mountain with the Ten Commandments, he sees the other Jews had built a Golden Calf and weree worshipping it. Let me ask you this-How can you worship something that YOU created? You are the creator of IT, IT is not the creator of YOU.
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in June 27th, 2007 @ 16:29Some Mormons just walked right by my house.
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Elizabeth
in June 27th, 2007 @ 16:37320- are you sure christianity came first?
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in June 27th, 2007 @ 16:58(320) Donaldo, how are you defining “paganism”? Until recently when people used the word they mostly referred to those religions which existed before Christianity, so I’m not sure why you say Christianity came first — unless you’re thinking of “neo-pagan.”
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in June 27th, 2007 @ 17:14FrigidSymphony seems most interested in the Norse and Germanic gods. I’m not sure how old that religion was. Most of what we know about it was recorded by Christian missionaries, and I don’t think detailed descriptions go back much earlier than A.D. 1000. But we know the Germanic and Gallic tribes had gods and rituals much before that, because the Romans mentioned them.
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dark duke of darkness
in June 27th, 2007 @ 19:21320-ookay… i have to answer that. first of all paganism can mean many things. the only thing that one need sto make something pagan is to be polytheistic. or, by some christian definitions, not christian. seeing that christianity came into existence about say… 2000 years ago, and there were religions before then, i would say that you are wrong. second, your opinion that the norse gods were created by humans is no different than my opinion that all religions were created by humans. trY to look at it from a slightly objective point of view, if you can. you think very strongly that the norse gods are the creations of man. i think that all religionS are the creations of man. can you not apply the same concept?
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Seamouse
in June 27th, 2007 @ 19:32(I’m new here, so this probably isn’t the best place for my very first post, but oh well. And yes, I read the rules.)
320- Donaldo, I think that your argument that Christianity came first is simply you stating your religious beliefs. And, as you were saying, if we can’t worship something we created, then how can we worship any god that we created to explain life? The ancient polytheistic cultures created their sun gods and rain gods to explain life and the world around them, so how is that any different from a culture deciding to create just one deity to control all of nature?
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Red-tailed HAWK
in June 27th, 2007 @ 19:39326-Welcome! I am the very nice HAWK, and can answer any questions, as can many other people here. I suggest staying a ways away from this thread at first, though, as people can be mean and nasty and might not be nice just because you’re new. I stay only on the nice threads, so look for me just about anywhere but here…
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in June 27th, 2007 @ 19:54326 – Welcome, Seamouse! There are a lot of nice people here, including Red-tailed HAWK and me. We can answer all your questions. Unfortunantly, there can be some not-so-nice people around here, and they generally hang out here. This is probably not where you’d want to start MuseBlogging. So I would suggest that you go to the “Welcome, Newcomers” thread and ask for assistance in finding good threads. People will come almost immediately to help you.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in June 27th, 2007 @ 20:12(327, 328) It’s true that civility sometimes breaks down when passions are engaged, and tempers occasionally flare. But is it fair on that account to say or imply someone is not a nice person?
Yes, at the risk of being pied, I will say it: we are all Musers here.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in June 27th, 2007 @ 20:33Well put! May I offer you a slice of pie?
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Alice
in June 27th, 2007 @ 20:59*pies Seamouse* Welcome!
But that was not the only reason I came here. I just wanted to say on this only halfway-civil thread, we’re all – oh wait, Rebecca beat me to it. But honestly, I really did mean to say it.
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agagabagabag
in June 27th, 2007 @ 21:20Donaldo, Paganism is veeery old. Waaaaaay older than christianity!!! And “built” means that the beliefs were evovled from sky worship and the like to specific gods! All religions were! Religions are just things made at points in time, waay after the beggining of the universe, so none of them can be right! Abraham made up Judaism off the top of his head! If it was true, then god would have had some people believe in him long before abe! And jews didn’t build the calf religion, it was an egyptian god, which was far older than Judaism! And judaism was originally worshipped by it’s CREATORS!!!
326- You are very smart. Be friends? Sorry to seem so angry. R-TH is very nice, and a friend of mine.
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canon in D
in June 27th, 2007 @ 23:41Hey, I posted on Hot Topics for my first post. Hot Topics is always my favorite thread, because I can see other peoples thoughts on things that are very important to me. Flaming [/i/]does[/i/] bother me, but I realize that most people (including me) don’t have the patience of Job. I’ve pretty much become immune to the flaming- you have to look beyond insults, and just realize that these topics are very important to people, and be even more polite about your posts. Exssesive use of explanation points and caps quickly escalate into name calling, and GAPAs soon have to start snipping things. You know that you’re in trouble when the GAPAs start snipping:-)
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Shadowkat
in June 28th, 2007 @ 15:01326-Hello, Seamouse! *pies* My name is, as you can see, Shadowkat, and I have many titles here, none of which I will mention, because most of them have been forgotten, anyway. *hem*…Sorry about that. As I was saying, I would like to be the 5th (?) to welcome you to MuseBlog. May you be pied much, well, and often!!!
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niugnep
in June 28th, 2007 @ 21:45Some Christian religious practices were actually incorperated into the religion from pre-christian traditions. When misionaries came into new areas they found that a good way to convert people was to make them believe that they were already Christian. That’s where we get the Christmas tree, which was originally German.
As humans we set ourselves to high standards because it is to our advantage. Take a look at traditional morals and you’ll see that we are often on both ends of the issue. You don’t steel and you are not stolen from (very often). Without these conventions we couldn’t work together to live in a complex society. I think that you would agree that you live a better life in our civilization where everyone specializes in something and people live in comfort with running water and iPods than alone hunting and gathering. I really like this question. I think it’s really very philosophical and philosophy is fun. Maybe the Gapas would consider giving us a thread to discuss it and others.
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dark duke of darkness
in June 28th, 2007 @ 21:46326-welcome(im number 6!)! wonderful how you agree with me. (you do. trust me)
329-*pies* the dread phrase must not be uttered, on pain of pieing! let that be a warning to you!
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in June 28th, 2007 @ 22:08Good idea. I’ll call the new thread “Philosophy and Ethics.”
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 30th, 2007 @ 22:06326-Hey! WELCOME TO MUSEBLOG!!! Trust me. I am a lot nicer than I might seem on this thread. Some threads can turn even the nicest people into savages. Anyway, come to the Pirates RRR-we need more writers. R-tH is very nice, and so is Alice. I am generally very nice, too, and E2MB and agagabagabag are hecka nice also. Friends? Even if we don’t agree on Hot Topics?
Oh yeah, I almsot forgot! *pies Seamouse with a chocolate WELCOME pie!*
335-LOL. Germans were always Christian. The christmas tree may have originally been German idea, but the Germans were Christians long before that. I’m German, BTW. Also, I just realized, niugnep, that your name was penguin spelled backwards! Neat! Good explanation about the standards thing too. I agree.Darn it. I had a REALLY good Hot Topic, that WASN’Treligious(I know-shocking, ain’t it?), but I forgot it. Oh well.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in June 30th, 2007 @ 22:09332-You didn’t read my post carefully enough. I said that after the Jews escaped from Egypt, while Moses was up on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments from God, the other Jews built a golden calf, which the fact that they were from Egypt explains that. They worshipped it, however, which didn’t make sense since they built it. They created it. They believed that the Golden Calf that was in front of them was there god in person, but it wasn’t, cause they had built it.
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E2MB
in June 30th, 2007 @ 22:33Has everybody left except Donaldo to the Philosiphy and Ethics thread to argue about hot topics?
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Rosanne Spector (Administrator)
in June 30th, 2007 @ 22:42The comment in post 338, “Germans were always Christian,” has inspired the following GAPA reality check: People were living in the place that is now called Germany long before Jesus was born and Christianity came to be. How could these people have been Christian?
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E2MB
in June 30th, 2007 @ 23:12341 – I don’t know. Maybe missionaries from the future got in time machines and went back to preach to them? j/k…good point, Rosanne.
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Sweet Melpomene
in July 1st, 2007 @ 13:34320- I said because we can, not because we want to. There is a difference.
Also, Pagan religions are simply those that are not Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, yes? Many Pagan religions existed before Christianity. Which was founded around 33CE.
Also also [this ties in with 339], I could throw that question right back at you. How can you worship this “God” built by Christians before you? Do you not pray to a crucifix? Constructed by humans? Honestly, my good fellow, yours is not the only of these created deities. It is no different than the others, which are simply mythical ways of explaining the world. But now we have science. Yay science. Heh, this brings back that joke: “You wonder what God was thinking when He created Man? I wonder what Man was thinking when He created God.”341- Thank you for pointing that out before I did so sarcastically and snarkily. ^_^ Yay, GAPAs.
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agagabagabag
in July 2nd, 2007 @ 16:18339- They worshipped what it represented.
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Vendaval
in July 2nd, 2007 @ 18:51338- the Christmas tree idea was used by Germanic tribes to celebrate the Yule (Winter Solstice).
339- It never says who the calf was supposed to represent, or if the people actually believed if it was their god.
“These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of this land of Egypt”
“Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord”” Aaron, Exodus 32.5
343 Makes a good point
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in July 3rd, 2007 @ 17:49341-Ever heard of Jews?
344-No, in the Bible, they worshipped IT, not what it represented.
345-Yes it did. That is why they WORSHIPPED it. They said it was their god. What is with the quote?
343-What? D you think all Christians are Catholic? I pray to God, not a crucifix!!!Seriously, why do people always rant on Christianity? Buddhism and Hinduism aren’t nearly as believable as Christianity. Can’t you guys take a break from me? I am the only Christian on this thread, and you guys are always beating down on me. Why can’t you guys talk about another religion, or better yet, aanother topic besides religion?
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Shadowkat
in July 3rd, 2007 @ 19:21346-I don’t usually like to get involved in stuff like this, but: “Oh, you are NOT honestly talking to Rosanne like that!!! Have some respect, at least, boy!”
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Red-tailed HAWK
in July 3rd, 2007 @ 19:28346-I’m not sure why people are so in to this topic, but it might be because you seem to be believing without much proof. I have not been following this and so am just guessing to try to get you an answer. Please do not hurt me. *Ducks into corner*
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in July 3rd, 2007 @ 19:54Is it just me or have the GAPAs been letting threads generally go longer than normal lately?
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Rosanne Spector (Administrator)
in July 3rd, 2007 @ 20:11Shadowkat (347): Let’s give Donaldo a break. He’s feeling beaten down. Thanks for writing that, though
Donaldo (346): Your comment got me interested in reading a little more about Germanic religion. My husband is German and I often go to Germany to visit his family so I’m generally curious about things German.
I looked up “Germanic religion” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and here’s some of what I learned:
Conversion of Germanic people to Christianity began in the 4th century, with the conversion of the Goths to Christianity. The oldest documented record of a Jewish community there is from the year 321.
So I don’t know for sure if Jews were in Germanic lands before conversion to Christianity began there — but it does seem likely that Jews were there at least a few decades earlier.
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351
agagabagabag
in July 3rd, 2007 @ 22:05346- They weren’t jewish, the bible has been wrong many times before, and buddhism and Hinduism are quite believeable and doesn’t cause nearly as many problems.
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352
Ê‘yviva
in July 3rd, 2007 @ 22:44299- while i see the logic in what you are saying, after all, even if i believe the apple will go up gravity makes it come down, the cases are not parallel. this is because “animal” is a classification. as the ones doing the classifying we can choose to classify ourselves differently whether this is logical or not.
332- abraham didn’t make up judaism. also, in the interest of peace, please don’t imply that religions are made up. also what do you mean by “And judaism was originally worshipped by it’s creators”
346- “they said: this is your god, isreal, that brought you out of the land of egypt” (ex. 32:4) there is a reason that the text treats this as wrong. perhaps it wouldn’t have been such a big deal if they had worshipped what it represented. the ONLY thing this proves is that people are willing to worship something they made. period.
also, other than donaldo and i, is there anyone else on this thread for whom this is part of their religion? if not (or even if it is), please refrain from over using it, especially if you do not take into account interpretation and tradition). a great deal about the text is open to interpretation- and there are many interpretations and traditions.
351- who isn’t jewish? (this is one of the many instances of people being unclear. people, please be clearer in your posts)
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353
agagabagabag
in July 3rd, 2007 @ 23:16352- But religons are made up. And responding to your response to 346- They didn’t make it. The egyptians did. When you pray to an alter to jesus, do you pray to him or his picture? And l meant the germans.
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354
Vixen in the Eyes of the Moon
in July 4th, 2007 @ 03:00Ok…
What should the United States do about corporations firing a bunch of US workers and then going to Mexico and paying people to do the same jobs for less money?
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355
Ê‘yviva
in July 4th, 2007 @ 09:35353- first off, i don’t pray to jesus- i’m jewish. secondly, religions aren’t made up. even if you deny that god had anything to do with them, which you are perfectly entitled to believe, religions evolve. the way a religion is now is not the same as it was ,say, 200 years ago.
the golden calf, as the simple reading of the text goes, was made by the israelites. however, the concept of this cow god was egyptian.354- there is very littlle they can do- both practically and constitutionally. we live in a capatilist country with an open market, anything they try to do can be seen as a threat to that freedom.
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356
Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in July 4th, 2007 @ 22:03347-OK, sorry, Rosanne. I am just getting beaten up here!
348-I wouldn’t hurt you. You are nice, R-tH!
350-Thank you so much!
353-No, I do not pray to his picture. I pray to Him.
354-Make a law against it, I guess. I don’t know much about these topics. I personally am not paying much attention to politics these days, as I am a Republican. PLEASE don’t beat me up about that. *goes to hide in corner*
355-Thanks!
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357
Alice
in July 4th, 2007 @ 22:42Why must we all criticize each other’s beliefs, and fight over things needlessly? I mean, we’re all Muser’s here, right? And a good deal of us are writers, musicians, and/or artists. Why can’t we talk about nice things, like raspberries or swimming, rather than bad things, like . . . *has no idea what they talk about here* like whatever you’re fighting about here? I mean, if you were the ancient Scots and if this wasn’t a virtual world, a good half or more of the bloggers would be dead, because you didn’t agree! *apologizes for reference to Scottish history*
Why, why, WHY? Everyone here is perfectly nice. Why not just put aside our differences? I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: We’re all Musers here.
*throws a few pies to relieve the tension*
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358
Vixen in the Eyes of the Moon
in July 5th, 2007 @ 03:48355- True. So why do Americans continue to support these corporations, by shopping at Wall-Mart and wearing Coke t-shirts?
Someone please bomb WallMart.
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359
Ê‘yviva
in July 5th, 2007 @ 10:36358- your point is a good one- the government can not take action, for reasons i mentioned in 355. the consumers are the only ones who can do anything. however, should they?
*note* i do not have an opinion, because i do not feel informed enough, however, these are points i would like to raise*
– corporations are within their legal rights to do what they are doing, instead of focusing energy on them, should the public be more concernned with llegal activity?
– corporations are lessining the amount of jobs, they are simply transfering them. if they pay less people, they can hire more people. concievably, this could bring more people out of poverty.
– america is one of the strongest democracies, and freedom is firmly ingrained in its culture. however, economic dissatisfaction has caused multiple countries to turn to dictators. can america afford the risk of letting so many americans lose their jobs?
– the fastest way to stop outsourcing is to put america on par by lowering minimum wage and working conditions. is it worth it? people today can work full time, and still not have enough money to pay the bills. should the government agrravate the situation? the reason other people cann deal isd they have a lower standard of living- could americans deal with lowering the standards and should they?
– what exactly is wrong with what the corporations are doing? is it a violation of human rights? is it weakening are country? something else? nothing?
i hope i raised some points for both sides of the issue. i tried at least.
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360
biblioRose
in July 5th, 2007 @ 10:45357- Because all of us have passion for our beliefs. I know that however much I dislike it, there is a spark within me that desires a bit of domestic conflict, for stimulation. As I try to become a writer I try to become informed, less about what they argue about and more about the passion and reason behind thier beliefs. And it is sort of fun to me to defend my views. Rasberries are lovely and swimming is fun. I do like to take time for those and the majority of my life is those things. But I have trouble denying that harmless spark.
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361
agagabagabag
in July 5th, 2007 @ 13:04356- Exactly what l meant. The jews didn’t pray to apis’s statue, they prayed to him.
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362
biblioRose
in July 5th, 2007 @ 17:45Oh, wait. I hope that wasn’t mean of me.
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363
Alice
in July 5th, 2007 @ 17:51362- Naw. I’ve given up on you guys, anyhow. If you want to argue, have fun. I can’t argue, because I feel really bad about it while I’m writing the post, so whatever.
[/apathy]
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in July 5th, 2007 @ 19:15358-Agreed. Bomb WalMart. Target is so much better.
360-Exacatilly!
BTW, where is FS?
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365
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in July 5th, 2007 @ 19:22(364) At present, FS is in the U.S. visiting family.
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366
dark duke of darkness
in July 6th, 2007 @ 02:26343-ehh, not quite. pagans are polytheistic. that means no bhuddists, and hinduism is out ’cause too many people, and its just weird. and i think wicca and such are nonos too. i think basically a polytheistic belief in things everyone else stopped believing in a loooooooong time ago.
346-ehh, ye got taht wrong. 1-Buddhists have a nice history, and are tolerant. hindus… well, maybe not such a nice history, but at least they’re prett tolerant. christians and muslims are not any of those things. (not all christians and muslims mind you, just the religion as a whole) 2- much more easy for me to believe a vague sense of spirituality than it is for me to belive that there is some almighty dude with a beard.
355-just cause a religion eveloves doesnt mean it wasnt created….
358i’m sorry, i can’t. they dont have wall-mart in new york. (city, that is)
359-argh. if there are not enough jobs(which, by the way there are), create more. dont lower the minimum wage. raise it, and make people awnt to come here. it makes sense… the rich business owners can redistribute their wealth to the poor workers. there are more than enough resources, at least in america. we can maybe share them with the whole country, instead of keeping it all in a tiny percentile called the rich?
corporations may be in their legal rights to have horrible working conditions. but they shouldn’t. and what exactly is the giant wave of illegal activity you are worried about?
we may be able to have a lower standard of living. but it simply doesnt workt ht way. if the vast majority of people’s standard of living goes down because corporations have decided it should, the owners of said corperations will have much higher standards of living. its not like we’re not the only hugely rigc country with such an unfair distribution of wealth. (hope you could sort of the double negative there)
360- i feel exactly the same way. i love to argue.
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367
agagabagabag
in July 6th, 2007 @ 12:04360- It’s spelled Buddhist. And the medieval definition of pagan is any religion other than christianity and judaism, including Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. But the beard thing? So true. But they don’t have a wall mart in new york city, which is almmost six times as large as my beautiful San Francisco?
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368
Shadowkat
in July 6th, 2007 @ 14:58350-Haha…well, hey, I love Donaldo, and I understand that he’s getting beat up, but…I didn’t mean to sound…well, mean. But you’re welcome.
354-Absolutely nothing. If the American workers are demanding more money for jobs that foreign workers will do for less, then I don’t blame the corporations for out-sourcing (and such). They have every right to do so.
359-On the other hand, if we’re even questioning corporations’ leaders’ rights to do what they want with their property, we can’t be all that free.
366-In other words, we should steal from the rich money that they legally and fairly earned, and give it to the poor who don’t have that money, if not just because they couldn’t find/make a job for themselves? I’m not a mean person, but stealing isn’t right, no matter what the circumstance.
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369
Ê‘yviva
in July 6th, 2007 @ 15:10366- if you raise the minimum age, companies can not afford to hire as many workers. and people already want to come here- thats why there are such problems with illegal immagrants.
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370
Vendaval
in July 6th, 2007 @ 18:03346- That was a quote from the bible, being as specific as it gets on the people worshiping the gold calf/the god represented by it. Look at Exodus 32.5.
P.S. If any of you feel that I’m being too harsh, just tell me.
I’m Christian.What about extreme anti-trust laws? If companies couldn’t grow much further beyond mom and pop, trickle down is a lot easier. Small companies would lead to a much more friendly, but at the same time, slower economy.
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biblioRose
in July 6th, 2007 @ 18:51366- Wow. You agree with me on something!
I don’t understamd whats so awful about Walmart. It provides loads of jobs and health insurance to emplyees, donates money to charities, and it’s prices are pretty cheap. I’ve only been to a few in my life but they always seemed pretty clean too. We don’t shop there regularly because its farther away.
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372
Shadowkat
in July 7th, 2007 @ 10:37Why am I ignored on this thread?
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agagabagabag
in July 7th, 2007 @ 12:07371- As a reward for working at walmart for l believe twenty years (with very low pay) employees recieve a whopping… polo shirt. l rest my case.
372- l would respond to you, but l’m not really in that discussion, so all l can do is offer you cookies.
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374
E2MB
in July 7th, 2007 @ 13:23373 – I suppose, though, in addition to paying it’s workers dirt, it’s products are also as cheap as dirt, so it’s workers can buy them without going broke. Though this does remind me of the old saying, “Dirt quality products always come dirt cheap”.
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375
Vixen in the Eyes of the Moon
in July 7th, 2007 @ 13:47A man, working full time, with minimum wage, in ANY state, is not able to earn enough to pay for:
1. food.
2. medical bills
3. electric bills
4. utility bills
5. housing bills
6. retirement
7. clothesSo, if walmart pays its workers this low, and the only place that the workers can afford to shop is walmart, walmart makes a huge profit.
Let’s say the minimum wage is seven dollars per hour. a decent wage is about ten dollars or more an hour. By not having to pay the worker ten dollars, walmart saves three dollars per hour. Now, let’s say that out of the seven dollars, 1.50 is spent on food and clothing AT WALMART. Walmart then saves another 1.50, actually giving the worker only five-fifty where it should be giving the worker at least ten dollars.
That’s cheating. And Target isn’t much better. What’s better are your small family stores. Not chain coorporations.
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Ê‘yviva
in July 7th, 2007 @ 20:38375- one of the [many] reasons it is true that many fulltime workers are below the poverty line is outdated clasifications. when he poverty line was drawn, one of the main expenses was food. today however, one of the largest bills a person can pay is the rent- which can take up an entire paycheck.
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Shadowkat
in July 8th, 2007 @ 13:24373-Well, thank you…I appreciate it.
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378
FrigidSymphony
in July 9th, 2007 @ 12:32Christianity came before paganism? Look at it historically, and you will see how Christianity took ancient pagan symbols (the crucifix) and practices (yule) and perverted them to suit their own immoral blasphemy.
The origin of Teutonic paganism is lost in the mists of time. We don’t know when it first came about, but we DO know it was before Christianity! You seem to be unable to face the evidence that your so-called religion is nothing but a fabrication, a spiderweb of myths designed to mentally enslave and limit you. Now, it is true that all religions are nothing more than myths, but many of them don’t force blindness and stupidity onto the worshipper. GO look up the concept of “left hand path” and start worshipping Baphomet, and you might become a lot smarter.
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379
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in July 9th, 2007 @ 12:52Let’s boil that last post down to its actual infomation content:
“… The origin of Teutonic paganism is lost in the mists of time. We don’t know when it first came about, but we DO know it was before Christianity! …”
All the rest is filler.
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Penty the Pantsless Communist
in July 9th, 2007 @ 13:15Paganism in various forms predated Christianity by over four thousand years, and we have hard facts, and approximate dates. Let us not be Eurocentric, and remember the Sumerians, who were worshipping multiple gods in 4500 BC or some similar date. They have written records: poetry, myths, that sort of thing. And they weren’t Christian.
It’s highly likely that other forms of ‘paganism’ predated the Sumerians, but they were the first to write it down. All we have from earlier forms of worship are artifacts, but these go all the way back to the Stone Age. Neaderthal sites show evidence of religion; they buried their dead and have arrangements of objects that hint at some kind of mysticism. This is all thirty thousand years ago or so, unless you think that the earth is six thousand years old, in which case you’re not going to believe a word I’m saying anyway.
Look, information content!
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381
Axa
in July 9th, 2007 @ 14:20379- Yeah, could we have some sort of…structure to this thread? I avoid it because mostly it’s just people saying “I AM RITE HERE’S WHY” now and it’s very discouraging. Though it hard to have a discussion without personal opinion. Hrmph.
…this thread is supposed to have more civility and it just has less as a whole.
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382
Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in July 9th, 2007 @ 17:42366-Yeah sure, Hindus are very believable, with who-knows-how-many gods, like the one that can create the universe, another who can destroy, god of elephants, etc. And they all appear as animals? Yeah right.
Sorry to Hindus here, I just don’t like your religion, not you.
368-Thanks. I didn’t think you were mean. I admit I was rather rude. Sorry. Also, on stealing, I say it is OK in a life or death situation, but otherwise, I listen to God’s Commandments: “Thou shalt not steal.” Also, some people do not fairly get money. Paris Hilton, anyone?
378-FS, you’re back! YIPPEE!!!!!! I AM SO HAPPY! (Ok, that sounded so weird-I can’t believe I am happy he’s back! LOL)
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383
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in July 9th, 2007 @ 21:22(382) Donaldo, no one is asking you to like Hinduism, but if you’re going to criticize it, you should learn enough about it to make informed statements. Hinduism encompasses an extraordinarily complex and multifarious set of beliefs, unrecognizable in the caricature described in your post.
It is not even fully accurate to say Hinduism is polytheistic. Some forms of it are, some are not. For example, the various gods may be viewed as aspects of one god, similar in certain respects to the way many Christian denominations view the trinity. From an outsider’s point of view, why should one be “believable” and the other not?
</lecture>
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384
agagabagabag
in July 10th, 2007 @ 00:04378- Right on!
380- Their is Homo erectus had what could be called paganism long before the sumerians, and much longer than six thousand years!
382- Oh yeah, Christianity is very believeable, with it’s world age of 6,000 years, and it’s god that can create the universe but can’t prevent me from insulting him.
Hey, was it here that someone suggested that time slowed down, so that scientists and religion could both be right? lf that happened, the time slow-down would make the dating indicate 6,000 years anyway because the radiocarbon wouldn’t change!
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385
Penty the Pantsless Communist
in July 10th, 2007 @ 00:28381 (Axa)- Less is moar.
As in, when the OEADs ask for more civility, they get less. ;_;
384 (ag)- But they didn’t write it down, which makes a lot of difference. The Sumerians were the first people to leave written evidence of their religion, which was polytheistic.
382 (Donaldo)- All religions require some kind of faith; this is what makes them religion. To say that one religion is more believable than another is like saying one fairy tale is more believable than another. (NO I AM NOT SAYING RELIGIONS ARE FAIRY TALES NOBODY JUMP ON ME AND PUMMEL ME ABOUT THE HEAD PRZ) You may think that Cinderella is less likely to be true than Hansel and Gretel, but that idea is based on your own personal experiences. Maybe you’ve seen a candy house in the woods. Someone who’s never seen that house but has seen a pumpkin turn into a carriage in front of their eyes will probably believe the opposite from you. This is a rather extreme example, but the basic premise is the same: your beliefs are based on your personal experiences and upbringing, and those of other people on theirs. You can’t say that an entire religion is unbelievable just because it doesn’t fit with your experiences.
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386
Axa
in July 10th, 2007 @ 01:58Here’s the thing, MBers: no matter how many good points you make, if you bash anything in a discussion/debate, whoever you’re talking to is going to immediately take the offensive and now you have an argument. Also it’s hard to take someone seriously if, after they give an interesting take on life, the universe, and everything , they go on to say that if you don’t agree with them you must be a moron.
Personal attacks aren’t supposed to be part of a discussion. This isn;t a thread where you should just reply reply reply replyreplyFLAMEFLAMEreplyreplysulkreply. Research. Think.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T GUYS. Okay.Although I’m not the ~*expert*~ or anything, here are some tips that could improve this thread and future HT from spiraling down into the abyss.
-Be flexible. A lot of us come in here thinking “I’m right, YOU GUYS ARE ALL CRAZY” But discussion is meant to open the mind to new ways of thought.
-Give reasons. Oh the one liners kill me, they really kill me.
-….have sensible reasons.
– None of us know everything. What you know about a religion, issue, or person may in fact be incorrect. This is why doing a bit of research can save you a lot of flaming.
– Don’t flame. It’s not cool. LOL PUN.
– Personal attacks are immature and have no place in this thread. This includes needlessly ridiculing points of view or religions, things that make up part of who a person is.Okay I’m glad to have finally said that. This has been bugging me for so long.
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387
100% cotton
in July 10th, 2007 @ 11:38hey guys. this is something a friend of mine who is currently in bolivia said, and i was just wondering what you thought about it.
The night before last while staying with a wonderful family we had the amazing experience of hearing all about the world by an indigionous man by the name of Llewar (which in quechua means blood fire). This was my first experience in Bolivia that really turned my world upside down.
Here is some reflection on the conversation we had with him
all these are just questions and hypothetical conversations, and so please dont be offended or think i have fallen off the deep end.
The conversation was fully indescribable, but the word that pops to mind is inspirational. It was deep and philosophical but had the feeling of a common dialogue around the fire (where we were).We were all chewing coca leaves and listening to this incredibly wise man laying out all of his views infront of us, like saying ¨This is who I am, this is what I believe.¨
It made me question the US and the fact that they call these people who have SO much poor. These lines that he said will forever be ingrained in my memory.
” No somos pobre, no somos el tercer mundo, somos de el solo mundo, no necicitamos su ayuda.”
It basically translates to ” We are not poor, we are not the third world, we are part of the only world, we do not need your help”
These lines resinated with me so much that I nearly cried.
We talked about mindless consumers bred by power hungry corperations in a neo liberal and capitalistic society.
He really made me question which way of living i think is better, which is impossible to do for most americans when the western media reports in only one perspective and voice, The use the voice of “we need to help the third world become more like us” How arrogant can we be? Who are we to assert our views and methods of organizing society on a people who have been doin fine for thousands of years? It goes so far to even think about how we cant stand to say that we share a world with these people, since we call them the “third world” as Llewar said, there is only one world…our world.
Another question brought up is what is progress? I have recently discovered that EVERYTHING is relative. What we call happiness or quality of life is relative to our perspective and enviroment in and on the world. Is progress good? or is just subsistance enough? Why did I say “just” before subsistance? Isnt living enough?
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388
Ê‘yviva
in July 10th, 2007 @ 13:56384- do not fight fire with fire. enough heat and the computters will melt and no one will be able to access museblog.
this is not a thread for insults, be they against people or their beliefs.
simply because people belive in a god powerful enough to create the universe doesn’t mean they believe in a god who cares if you insult it. what people believe god can do and what they believe wants to do are two different things.
in addition, your comment showed just as much of a lack of knowledge. not all christians believe the world is 6,000 years old.i would like to point out the following: in judaism, the age of the world is counted from adam and eve, from almost the end of the sixth day. if one accepts the idea that a “day” does not refer to a 24 hour period, that leaves billions and billions of years as leeway. if one accepts it in a slightly poetic form, one could view adam and eve as the first human beings even though they are dated to a point after the earliest fossils of homo sapiens. perhaps it was around 6,000 years ago that some form of civilization arose that was distingishable from those around it. maybe human doesn’t mean homo sapien, but a person with certain cultural and ethical behavior.
that said, kindly do not bring up creation vs. evolution. there are many people with many strong feelings. enough is enough.
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389
Ê‘yviva
in July 10th, 2007 @ 14:17Here are a couple of problems i have with the US at ths point in time-
A) an underappreciation for going green
reducing oil dependancy makes the world better in the enviorment and would also allow the US to stop worring about what oil producing nations would think and instead focus on what the correct thing to do is.
B) lack of emphasis on schooling
oh, people in the US are obsessed with higher education- to the point where they ignore the possibilities of lower education. the point of llower/middle/high schol is not going to collage. its learning. also, your most signifigant beliefs are set then. if collage is the only belief that’s set- what happens later.
C) a lack of respect for the government.
bush jokes are rampant laughing at him is the national pastime. its horrible. i am not saying i support bush and his poilicies, i am saying that we need to do something to fix the issue that there is no respect. this has ramifications.
D) classification of people by race/religion/gender, especially governemntal officials
i saw an article that asked if the us was ready for a female, black or morman president. who cares? the question is not the persons backround but their policies and deciding if they are suited for the position. to quote Barbara Cubin, representative of WY: “I firmly believe that i was elected because of my ability to represent the state of wyoming. the voters looked beyond my gender to find reasons to vote for me.”
if only this were always truly the case.
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dark duke of darkness
in July 10th, 2007 @ 23:52367-nope. pwned?
368-sigh. “366-In other words, we should steal from the rich money that they legally and fairly earned, and give it to the poor who don’t have that money, if not just because they couldn’t find/make a job for themselves? I’m not a mean person, but stealing isn’t right, no matter what the circumstance.”
that isnt the way things are. its almost as bad as saying poor people are lazy. poor people…are not lazy. they drop out of high scool becasue why would they stay in when they can make masses more money selling drugs? anyway, their family needs the money. then they get arrested, and put in prison. they get out and the only jobs they can get are minimum wage. noone will ever hire someone who has been to jail without a high school diploma. about the rich. they may have legally earned their moeny, but that i because they decide what is legal. the vast majority of rich peopel have always been rich. they live in the suburbs. if they get caught for smoking pot, they get off easy because their parents hire an expensive lawyer and they are white. in college they join a sorority that gets them an excellent job. why do they deserve this? the poor do not get a chance to become rich. the rich get chances over and over and over again. they do less work for more money.
369-people only want to come here because their own countries are worse. the companies can afford to hire lots of people. they just cant do it without cutting a little out of the salary of the rich people who own and manage the company.
370-unecessary. beter than what we have now, unnecessary, and really inefficient. how would we get things like plasitc and microprocessors?
375-yeperdooderdee! (tat was an i agree with you)
387-answered that on the other thread.
389-hmm. i agree except for the lack of respect for government. if the government deserves respect, give it to them. if not, why should we? we should have a government deserving of respect. unfortunately, we dont. so we need a better (new) one.
378-i dont like to worship non existent things. just a little thing i have.
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Penty the Pantsless Communist
in July 10th, 2007 @ 23:57I’m not going to make any further arguments toward the necessity of civility, because Axa and zyviva have put it much more eloquently and nicely than I probably would.
389 (zyv)- I agree with everything you’ve said here, except for the part about mocking Bush. When he starts to display some intelligence, responsibility, and respect for his people, I will respect him. Not any time before that.
As many, many people have said, one of the great strengths of the U.S. is its ideal of tolerance for all people and all speech. We are allowed to mock the government, and any way of “fixing the issue” would be further curtailing our constitutional rights.
Wait, no, I take that back. If the Administration took steps to listen to the people they are supposed to represent, if they listened to the mockery and acknowledged its causes, if they attempted to make amends for the horrible mess they have created in this country and others: that would fix the issue.
Also, I can’t see the ramifications of failing to trust a government that has proved itself untrustworthy.
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Axa
in July 11th, 2007 @ 02:27387- Third world isn’t the best term, but the US and other countries use it in a detached manner, not suggesting the people who live there are emotionally poor, but rather that these are “developing” countries, politically or otherwise. It’s a broad term and does not reference someone’s emotional fulfillment.
However, I agree that the concept of making other countries like the US is ridiculous. Didn’t their mothers read them Washington’s Farewell Address? Sigh.
389- As of late the green movement is gaining speed. More people know, now we just need to DO.
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Fortune Cell
in July 11th, 2007 @ 03:07It might be helpful if everyone took a look at the list of fallacious arguments (first link if you google “fallacious arguments), just a suggestion.
389- I agree with the first two. The third one I disagree with- respect is earned. If Bush acts in a way that people feel deserves respect, then respect he will recieve. Until then, the jokes will persist. Hell, even after. Mocking those in power is a long-loved tradition. As for “this has ramifications”… well, yes. Everything has ramifications. Cause -> Effect. Perhaps going into greater detail about what those ramifications are, exactly, would be more helpful.
As for the second one, well, this is actually something I was thinking about earlier. It is in human nature to classify things- you can see this in virtually every culture. You can see it on a country-wide scale, with people ranked according to how much money they have, for example. Or in more primitive cultures in the past: serfs, warriors, priests, lords. Or in the high school culture- nerd, jock, band geek, etc. Race, religion, and gender have all been cultural dividers in the past, and will remain so until something comes to replace them. As it is, seeing someone surpass the dividers is refreshing, because it means someone is breaking the stereotype. Obviously, the person’s politics are important. Frankly, though, a person who isn’t an old, white, man is just /different/.
Wow, that got weak at the end, I’m going to bed.
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Ê‘yviva
in July 11th, 2007 @ 11:52390/391/393- firstly, thank you for disagreeing in such an impersonal, directed, and logical manner.
while i understand your frustratin with bush (heck, i’ve got a very nice, long list of complaints) i would like to differentiate between two types of mockery. firstly, there is educated mockery. this includes things such as well written political cartoons. these cartoons attack different aspects of bush’s administration and point out the stupidity of his actions in a humourous and pointed way. the second type is uneducated bush jokes that attack bush simply because it is the popular thing to do. it is this second type that i am against. in my opinion, the first type is a beautiful expression of freedom of speech, but the second kind has the potential to harm any future president because it so drastically demeans the office of precidency and not just bush himself.393- while it is human nature, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t disturb me. in my opinion, by publically and continuously perpetuating this calssification, it only serves to reinforce the steryotype. also, you left out protestant in you list of adjectives.
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Axa
in July 11th, 2007 @ 13:33394) Ah, I agree muchly with the Bush bashing because everyone’s doing it. I’ve seen the calendars and books of “Bushisms” and such and it’s very childish. You’re right, there is a difference in mockery, etc.
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Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd
in July 11th, 2007 @ 18:20383-I never said that it was all polytheistic. Plus, I don’t care what anyone else thinks! Let’s get off the topics of Christianity and beating the only two MBers on this thread who are Christians up. I am just trying to get the topic changed. Later, I will be more specific, OK?
Also, something I heard on the radio about the Iraq war: It isn’t really even a war. It is just most of the world fighting against a minority group trying to stop the progress of their own country.
389-I agree with going green, but (and please don’t bash me on this) I do not agree with global warming. It is great to go green, but we don’t need to be drastic about it, like Al Gore. I don’t know about the second one. I don’t have much knowledge on that subject. The third one I have to agree with you: I like Bush, but I believe that anyone has the freedom of speech to go against the president, as long as they do their research. To me it seems like many people just bash the president because there parents are, and their friends are, without being informed about him. As for the fourth one, it IS, as Fortune Cell, said, human nature to classify people and place authority of one group over the other. I just wish-Vixen, pay attention to this next statement-it wasn’t always like that.
394-Rock on!
If you don’t want to give respect to the government, then I say go ahead. Just don’t be mean to those that do, and make sure you know why you don’t want to, other than your parents/friends aren’t.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in July 11th, 2007 @ 19:23(396) Donaldo, since you missed my hint, I’ll be more direct. You say you “don’t care what other people think” when you make sarcastic remarks about other religions — yet you seem to care very much when comments you don’t like are directed at your own beliefs. Do you see a contradiction there?
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Alice
in July 11th, 2007 @ 20:50397- It’s called a double standard.
Having delivered that gem of information*, I will leave. See you later! (On another thread.)
*Sarcasm. I hate the way it doesn’t come out over the computer. Maybe the italics helped somewhat.
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dark duke of darkness
in July 11th, 2007 @ 22:39398-i understood that perfectly! just being helpful. also, dont we usually get new threads when the post count goes over 300?
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agagabagabag
in July 12th, 2007 @ 00:42400th post. Now, we need a new thread. The GAPAs don’t usually let this happen.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in July 12th, 2007 @ 08:29The GAPAs are conducting an experiment.
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