Slashdot Mirror

Oh, please. If you really think that fear of non-whites is the core of what it means to not agree with Democrats on who should hold office and why,

I'm "locked up" on a "plantation?" Are you deliberately trying to validate what I'm saying? Or are you just so triggered you can't restrain yourself and have to let all that racist agita out somehow to relieve the stress?

I am a former republican, and I have never voted for a democrat in my life. And as it happens I spent 10 years living in Dallas and have family in that liberal bastion of Tyler (Louie Gohmert's district). So don't spazz out about me being brainwashed. I escaped the bubble that you so obviously embrace while denying it exists.

White identity has been the single most important plank of the GOP for the last 40 years. Trump just says outloud what y'all been saying in whispers, subtext and dog whistles.

Southern strategy
War on drugs
Build the wall
Welfare queens
Birtherism
Willie Horton
Every attempt to make English the official language
The Southern Baptist Convention - by far the single largest group of evangelicals - was created because real evangelicals made them choose between slavery and Christianity
Bob Jones University banned interracial dating as recently as 2000 and Pat Roberston still supports it today
Reactionary colorblindess and the hijacking of Dr King's message
Jeff Sessions was rejected by a bipartisan congress for a judgeship for being too racist in 1986 and now he's the freaking AG with unaniumous GOP approval
California Prop 187 in 1994 the passage of which was the beginning of the end for the GOP in that state
The list of example is basically endless
Also... Half of everything YOU post, you think you are clever but you aren't you are transparent AF.

• Catholic Answers, "The Trouble With Yoga" https://www.catholic.com/magaz...
• Alternet, "Fear the Dark Art of Yoga! Why Conservative Christians Are Freaking Out After Yoga “Miracle”" http://www.alternet.org/belief...
• Christian Assemblies International, "The Spiritual Deception of Yoga", https://webcache.googleusercon...
• Christianity Today, "Should Yoga be Banned from Public Schools as a Religious Activity?", http://www.christianitytoday.c...

I don't recall seeing a "Google is your friend" comment recently, so searching on yoga+unchristian gives the following top two search items:
todayschristianwoman.com
telegraph.co.uk
A little futher down is item by a Christian criticising the first articlechristianitytoday.com, so yoga isn't universally condemned by Christians.
Addressing your precise point, searching on yoga+evil gives this 2011 news report (I use the term loosely - it's from the English Daily Mail): ... Father Amorth, a colourful and often outspoken personality, said:'Practising yoga brings evil as does reading Harry Potter. They may both seem innocuous but they both deal with magic and that leads to evil.' He added:'Yoga is the Devil's work. You thing [typo is in the online article] you are doing it for stretching your mind and body but it leads to Hinduism. All these oriental religions are based on the false belief of reincarnation.' ...

That's the Republican response, not the Christian one. And it's not a strawman if they actually think that way. https://www.usatoday.com/story... Hence our predicament.

On the other hand, Not Just Pope Francis: Evangelicals Praise Paris Climate Talks

CT has an article clarifying some of the misreadings of divorce stats within the church.

http://www.christianitytoday.c...

Many of the Gazans are Christian. From the 2009 assault on Gaza:

"Israeli missiles hit Hamas targets but also destroyed civilian buildings in the densely packed territory, including a Christian medical clinic in Shijaiya that had provided free health care to the poor since 1968. Atallah Tarazi, a Christian surgeon at Gaza City's Shifaa Hospital, said two ambulances were hit and six of his paramedics killed, and lamented the high percentage of civilian casualties received by his hospital.

Gaza's Christian community of 2,500 suffered at least three deaths in the fighting—including 14-year-old Christine Turok, who died of a heart attack from fear—and Gaza Baptist Church and the Palestinian Bible Society were damaged by Israeli airstrikes.

A broad cross-section of Christian agencies mobilized aid to Gaza and southern Israel.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/march/1.13.html?paging=off

It's usually those on the left like Jenny McCarthy who are anti-vaxxers.

How does Jenny McCarthy's vaccine hysteria in any way represent the pro-science, evidence-backed POV of the left, which is generally known for its acknowledgement of such "controversies" as climate change, evolution, a 5 billion year old Earth, skepticism of homeopathy, etc.

The religious right segment of the right in particular is associated with its characteristic belief in mysticism and magic, a frequent refusal to seek modern medical treatment (as in christian science and other sects), faith healings, the "power of prayer" to cure disease, the actual existence of mythological characters, a young earth less than 6000 years old, the global warming "myth" conspiracy theory, the belief that sexual identity is a moral "choice", that life begins at conception, that birth control which prevents contraception somehow causes abortions, and a general lack of critical thinking.

(note I'm talking about the religious right, which became a part of the "right" in the late 70s.)

(and nevermind that they are not just refusing to allow malware, but also any political cartoons,

Presumably you mean "have refused in the past to allow political cartoons" (the app in question was the one the controversy about political cartoon apps was about).

That doesn't mean other apps that might be considered politically controversial aren't banned from the App Store, but they clearly are allowing the political cartoon app in question, along with other political cartoon apps, such as the msnbc.com Conservative Cartoons and msnbc.com Liberal Cartoons apps.

and that developers are at Apple's mercy).

Yes, if you're developing for iOS, you either have to have Apple find your app acceptable according to their standards or limit yourself to jailbroken machines.

No compulsion?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1999/issue63/63h042.html were gently persuaded then?

For reference: upcoming abortion video to play during Super Bowl.

Depends on your definition of a political ad, perhaps.

NBC rejected an anti-abortion ad during the 2009 Superbowl. However, the next year, CBS aired an anti-abortion ad..

I believe it's up to the networks to accept or reject any advertising--political or non.

I've never heard a Christian try to justify climate denial in terms of a Christian worldview, but there are two (seemingly contradictory) themes I have heard to justify that we don't need to alter our relationship with the Earth. The first is the claim that we have a right to abuse the planet's resources because we have been given authority to rule over it. This is sometimes augmented by the "it's all going to burn anyway" mentality common among the sort who take the Left Behind novels as serious theology. The second is the "well most of what scientists say is a load of hooey anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it too much" mentality imbued by the openly hostile relationship between science (exasperated by the arrogance of people like Dawkins) and certain elements within the Christian subculture.

On the other hand, you also have within the church people like Wendell Berry and the author of both this article and the books reviewed here (disclaimer: the author I'm talking about is a member of my family). I whole-heartedly agree with what you're saying by the way, I just want to make sure you understand where the denialist/don't-care-ist strain is coming from.

It's in a 3rd world country, but hey... Christians are Christians, right? It doesn't seem to matter to your argument what part of the world the Muslims are from when you're generalizing...

What your friend is doing is against the law.

Only actual expenses are deductible, never labor.

See here:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/yc/churchlawtaxupdate/judge_donationsoflabor.html

Which strangely uses the exact example of donating electrical work to a church...

Yes and no...
This article relates to a discussion of translating time and effort into an asset.

Services and Time are not deductible... Assets are.

Think about it this way if you develop some ingenious recording/broadcasting device for your church you can claim your actual expenses as a donation.
However if you create this device and patent it you have now created an asset. If you then donate the patent to your church you are no longer restricted to the same set of expenses.

IRS Pub 526 states:
Patents and Other Intellectual Property

If you donate a patent or other intellectual property to a qualified organization, your deduction is limited to the basis of the property or the fair market value of the property, whichever is less. Intellectual property means any of the following:

        * Patents.
        * Copyrights (other than a copyright described in Internal Revenue Code sections 1221(a)(3) or 1231(b)(1)(C)).
        * Trademarks.
        * Trade names.
        * Trade secrets.
        * Know-how.
        * Software (other than software described in Internal Revenue Code section 197(e)(3)(A)(i)).
        * Other similar property or applications or registrations of such property.

A lot of how this applies to you will depend on whether you are an individual or a corporation (a corporation will have methods of assigning a much higher basis, and of course on the quality of your professional advice.

What your friend is doing is against the law.

Only actual expenses are deductible, never labor.

See here:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/yc/churchlawtaxupdate/judge_donationsoflabor.html

Which strangely uses the exact example of donating electrical work to a church...

Well, I'm not sure WHY it's a requirement, but it has become one, de facto. You don't have to think it's great, or even like it at all, but just about every 'geek' has read it, regardless of what they thought about it.

And I WOULD say it's a child's fantasy world. It was written with his son in mind partly while he was in the trenches in WW1. Additionally he was a good friend of C.S. Lewis, who also wrote what I would call children's books.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2003/aug29.html

As long as you can keep the people who lied about their own miracles away from the methodology that makes breakthrough science possible.

They always try to silence anyone who dares to believe in a God...

That's a load of nonsense. http://www.aclufightsforchristians.com/

Here's another rebuttal to this old saw from Christianity Today: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/may/22.64.html

Is it not written that 'whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness'?

Bring it on.

The GP is a troll based upon tone, but the point is sound. Generally speaking, atheists want what flows from Calvinist-Christianity about the rights of man, but they wish to remove the epistemological supports for the arguments.

It's a matter of authority. For an expansion of this argument, see the written debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson.

Thats because in China religion is pretty much illegal and they jail you, torture you or kill you for being a Christian especially if you speak out.

http://www.persecution.org/newsite/countryinfodeta il.php?countrycode=16%5Bpersecution.org%5D
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/003/11.38 .html%5BChristianitytoday%5D
"The largest number of testimonies comes from central Henan Province, where persecution has dramatically escalated since 1999. Li's group has also collected partial reports on 17,000 others, mostly Christians, persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Li is also documenting the cases of 117 religious people who have died while in official custody, 700 who have been put in labor camps, and 550 who are wanted by the police but are in hiding. He is also investigating 300 police officers accused of being especially abusive."[christianitytoday]

That sounds so much better than here were we let those fundies run rampant! Is this what you want and the example we should follow?

"Movies--even bad ones--are works of art, created by artists with a certain vision of what they want to communicate--and how they want to communicate it. And as works of art, films should remain in their original forms, untouched, unedited, unsanitized. If a particular film's content is too objectionable to certain viewers, those viewers shouldn't watch that film. Simple as that."

There are almost no examples of matriarchal societies in human history.

Matriarchy may be in the minority in recorded human history, but to say "almost no" is an exaggeration, as others already have pointed out

That is not to say that a few have not popped up, but they are very rare and far between

Or few have left record. We know pretty well that patriarchy often went to great lengths to wipe out traces of female rule/independence/importance. (See, e.g., the unclear sex of the apostle Junia/Junias)

Yes, those athiests, Agnostics , or polythiests (romans, greeks, chinese, hindus, early middle east where civilization sprang from) never did much for us.

OTH, the christians have a long history of good research, teaching and education.

Good news! There is already a place that has been done. Saudi Arabia. So it should be "hate free", right?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/110/24.0. html

Now look at the results of the test:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/02/06/saud i.htm

Oops. Nevermind.

For instance, around the time LOTR:FOTR came out his magazine ran an article that attempted to claim that LOTR was Christian allegory.

While I agree Dobson's generally an incoherent idiot, Lord of the Rings very definitely isn't allegory--but it's very definitely Christian. As Tolkien himself wrote, "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first but consciously in the revision." There's a great deal of scholarly work out there on the Christian themes in the work. (It's something I wrote a term paper on, many years ago.)

You have to bear in mind that Hinduism has a dying god who dies for his people, then comes back. Norse mythology has the dying god. Greek mythology has the dying god. This myth is not new and it's not unique to Christianity. Yes, Christians who watch the movie or read the book will look for Christian symbolism. But I think that's the wrong way to approach it. I think it's far better to read the book or see the movie and try to find out where you fit into Narnia. Analyze yourself and how you would react under these circumstances. Who are you? Are you an Edmund? Are you a Peter? Or a Lucy or a Susan or a Tumnus? Where do you fit?

This is a lot like how China handles Christian churches. I wonder how many people running websites will refuse to comply?

/.'s article here is the first I've heard of this Real ID plan...

Well, aside from the obvious fact that since the neo-con coup the network media hasn't covered anything except talking-dubya-points, the reason you haven't noticed this tidbit of legistlation (which apparently started back in Feburary) is because "liberal media" has painted it as an immagration issue - that is: the only people targeted by this legislation according to the to PTB and their media cheerleaders were illegal aliens - I heard it debated on Faux News as an immagration issue a least a month ago. I would have to say either a) you haven't been paying attention, or b) you are foolish enough to a ctually believe the that the motives these pseudo-news agencies put forward are the actual intent of the neo-con coup. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course...

Here is a list of articles about this legislation (trivially found using Google) from some touchy feely immagration rights outfit that no one will pay any attention to.

[ -- copied & pasted -- ]

The REAL ID Act in the Media

• "Jewish Groups Oppose US's Stricter Controls on Asylum," Jerusalem Post, March 9, 2005
• "Death Sentence?" Christianity Today, March 8, 2005
• "Republican Plan Would Tighten Laws for Asylum Cases," Hearst Newspapers, March 6, 2005
• "Keep the Doors Open," The Jewish Week editorial, February 25, 2005
• "Unwelcome Mat," The Boston Globe, February 25, 2005
• "Religious Asylum Assailed," Family News in Focus, February 22, 2005 (PDF - 51KB)
• "Proyecto de ley torpedea el derecho de asilo," El Nuevo Herald, February 22, 2005
• "Conservative camps split on tightening asylum," The Boston Globe, February 21, 2005
• "Not broke, don't fix," The Washington Times, February 20, 2005
• "National ID Party," The Wall Street Journal editorial, February 17, 2005 (subscription required)
• "On Guard, America," The New York Times editorial, February 15, 2005
• "Refugee Politics," The Baltimore Sun editorial, February 14, 2005
• "Real ID Act deserves defeat in the Senate," San Antonio Express-News editorial, February 18, 2005
• "Playing the terror card," Contra Costa Times, February 14, 2005
• "Ineffectual migrant policy," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial

The Lancet article was a peer-reviewed estimate of Iraqi civilian casualties since the invasion as around 100,000 as of the fall of last year. Based on the statistics, the true number could be between 5,000 and 200,000, but the highest probability was around 100,000.

The methodology was to compare the rate of deaths before the war and the deaths after the war. If someone dies because Bechtel can't manage to get sewage treatment back on line, that counts as a death related to the US invasion just as surely as a cluster bomb dropped on a house full of civilians.

Note that the WaPo article gets the other casualty count sources wrong - Iraq Body Count is tracking confirmed casualties in the Western media. They acknowledge that they are definitely undercounting, simply because the Western media is not present at all locations where bodies are found.

A sizeable chunk of Iraqis would actually prefer life under Saddam to the current lawless situation. Not all, not even most, but more than you'd like.

The choice between what Bush is doing and Saddam is a false dichotomy. Last year, a majority of Iraqis wanted the Americans to leave immediately - even those who felt that it would increase violence. Apparently, the Bush administration knew better.

Whether or not the initial invasion's benefits outweighed its costs (for the US or the Iraqis), the question about the current occupation is entirely separate.

Given the extremely high turnout for last weekend's elections, I'd say that the question has been rather eloquently answered, don't you?

Not really; the turnout was less than in South Vietnam in 1967. Anyway, how many of those Iraqis went to the polls to vote the Americans out?

Pity about those Iraqi Christians who couldn't vote.

The amount of money donanted after 9/11 was large in relation to the need. That seems to be less likely with this disaster.

...There are NO holes.

Holes in the progression from some ancestor species to some decendant species, yes - many. But all the processes of both "macro" and "micro" evolution have been proven and documented.

There are NO holes and yet there are holes(???) The holes mentioned pose a pretty serious problem for macro-evolution, don't you think? Intelligent design doesn't explicitly rule out some mechanical process of evolution to some degree. The chief concern is whether or not a purely materialistic, chance-driven "natural selection" approach adequately accounts for the available data on the macro level. Extrapolating data on the micro-level does not necessarily require that it be the ONLY solution on macro-level.

"Faith" is unecessary when the entire process can be observed in action.

Mmmm. And have you seen the entire process of macro-evolution in action? You must be oldest reader on SlashDot :-) On the flip side, no one has really "seen" an electron. Faith is an active component in contemporary physics. It doesn't mean that electrons don't exist, but it also doesn't mean that there could be a better explanation for what we know of concerning electron behavior.

There are a couple more problems here with "faith", but I'll just leave it at that.

The big difference between cruelty in the name of science and cruelty in the name of religon is that religon supposedly has a supernatural guardian who is dictating the words - if a certain passage in the Bible promotes cruelty, that's not a *human* failing (as is cruelty in science) but rather the explicit Will of God.

There's a lot here: just a couple things to mention:

(1) You could easily argue that on the basis of the "survival of the fittest" that we should go ahead and eliminate all of the weak and crippled members of the human race. Why not? It is only being true to the principle of "natural selection", is it not? --- Isn't science a "naturalistic" guardian that dictates what observations be made and that humans are obliged to follow? Why not be "cruel" as you suggest is wrong regarding the treatment of witches? What if it were determined somehow that Wiccans should be eliminated due to "natural selection"? What ethical basis to protect Wiccans can be found in a purely materialistic evolutionary scheme? If you think any of this is far fetched, then you haven't come across the ideas of Princeton's Peter Singer.

(2) Sadly, I think you've been terribly misinformed regarding the Christian understanding of biblical inspiration. The Bible is the Word of God, but it is also the word of humans. God has accomodated Himself in the Bible to reveal is truth within the context that the original listeners could readily understand -- with all of their limitations.

Capital punishment of witches would not have necessarily been thought of as being "cruel" by the original human listeners/writer. It would be presumptuous to think that (just as presumptuous to think that the ancients would have been in "error" because they did not fully appreciate the insights of modern Darwinian evolution :-). In the ancient Hebrew mind, witchcraft was considered a threat to the community and capital punishment was considered the only real deterence to the practice. We can judge in hindsight, particularly in view of the teachings of the New Testament that are used today to categorize such actions now as "cruelty." The fact that a few Christians have continued to misunderstand this is surely regretable, but it is still a serious misinterpretation of the Bible.

(3) Granted, Christianity does bear some blame for the treatment of people accused with witchcraft, but the whole thing has become so seriously overblown that this really is more like an urban legend now:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2004/001/20.35 .html

I'm thankful your God doesn't exist. If he did, he'd be a right...

Unfortunately, it sounds like a lot of your complaint is based on anger. I doubt if anything more I'd say would be that productive.

chmorl

Link 1
Link 2
Just a couple of examples.

Don't have a lot of time on my hands, but I found this article. It references this passage:

Genesis 1:29-30
And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food"; and it was so.

All creatures were vegetarians in the garden of Eden.

Then see section Ten (Roman numerals) from this article.

Couple final items:
1) Genesis mentions that animals produced "after their kind" several times. Therefore, the Bible specifically says Evolution cannot occur.

2) If you ever get a chance to hear Ken Ham on his "Answers in Genesis" series - don't miss it.

It's because the magic in the Harry Potter is traditional witches-and-wizards magic. The Narnia series mythology is closely tied into Christianity. Seriously, have you read the later books in the series? It's pretty well beaten over your head by that point. Lewis was also influnced by astrology and Germanic mythology, but that stuff isn't near as offensive to your average middle-american Fundie as hexes and spells are.

For more info about the astrology tie-ins, check out this article. Yeah, it's on Christianity Today, ironically enough.

No one wants to hear about it, I'm sure, but these issues are near and dear to my heart as a religious person. France recently banned the wearing of head scarves, large crosses, and other overt religious symbols in public schools.

Also, a Swedish Pastor was recently arrested for saying things the government didn't like.

This sort of thing may or may not be in vogue on Slashdot, but for a very solid look into the world of Christianity, you can do no finer than Books and Culture. Theology, academics, the modern world and the historical all rolled into one very solid journal. Very much The Economist or the Atlantic Monthly of religious magazines. They also have a weekly weblog which is an excellent aggregator of news you should have read (but probably didn't), both religious and non.

"Paralysis by spinal cord injuries through accidents must be one of the most horrible life-altering experiences imaginable..."

Seconded only by receiving paralysis by spinal cord injuries through intentional torture and dismemberment in laboratories, or by the life lived under the ethics that permit scientists to do so. I hope these particular scientists somehow found rats with existing critical injuries and birth defects due to fantastic coincidence!

• Article by Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic who speaks on bioethics
• The rest of her resources on biotechnology and bioethics

ould be infected with HIV and I've made a HIV test and it was negative. Say whatever you want but I'll thank the God for negative test's answer

"Thank you, God, for killing those other 10 million people with AIDS, but not me!"

There are many speculations that they are human creations. HIV, SARS etc.. Thank a scientist.

Trying to get yourself passed over as paranoid/credulous, huh? Well it won't work... even if HIV and SARS were artificial diseases (laughable thought), they'd still be God's responsibility.

If you believe in God, then every time you "Thank a scientist", you should "Thank the God" too. But there are many things beyond the power of science- for those things, good or bad, you can still "Thank the God"

How do you know that you're existing?

That's simple, actually. I think I exist, so I do. The circularity of that argument is no weakness. Regardless of what the definition of "existence" might turn out to be, we can show that some things meet it.

In oposite, it teaches us to love every man, every creation in this world.

It does not... the Christian Bible is full of examples of the rightness of killing and vengeance. However, even if I accepted that relgion attempts to teach love for others, a look around will tell you that it has failed. The USA is one of those most heavily Christian places on earth; especially according to its own president; and yet it also maintains the most powerful killing force this planet has ever seen.

Christianity forsakes icons, perhaps rightly, as they distract one from one's relationship with one's God, and their spiritual emotional connection.

There are over a billion people calling themselves Chrisitans, and they adhere to thousands of different denominations and sects. The generalizations you can make about all Christians are very few. You certainly can't claim that all, or even most, Christians revile icons. It's particularly stupid to make this statement in connection with a movie made by a guy who adheres to a form of Christianity that revels in icons, about the iconic moment in Chrisitian history.

As a Christian and a gamer, why do I need specifically 'Christian' games? I don't play 'Christian' soccer or 'Christian' chess now, do I? I can see the point of some Christian literature if it's actually educating me on some point of my faith , (writers like Philip Yancey come to mind). I can see the point of Christian music like that of delirious and Tim Hughes that serves a purpose in connecting me with God, but beyond that I'll be the first to admit that a lot of what the Christian sub-culture churns out is poor ripoffs of mainstream.
I presume that the marketdroids have realised that we're just another market segment that will dutifully lap up whichever books, films, and now even games that have the word 'christian' stamped on them.
I wish this wasn't the case, but it is.

Why do you think some of the most religious people are often absolute morons, and many intelligent, well-educated people often aren't highly religious? Idiots need an explanation for everything, intelligent people seek answers and do not believe in what they cannot prove to themselves.

Malarky. Some of the brightest, most clear-headed people I know are born-again, and some of the most dim-witted and gullible are agnostics.

Galileo Galilei, though famous for his scientific achievements in astronomy, mathematics, and physics and infamous for his controversy with the church was, in fact, a devout Christian who saw not a divorce of religion and science but only a healthy marriage: "God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word."

Link

For reference, the two main Marian manuscripts cited are "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" by Anne Catherine Emmerich and "The Mystical City of God" by Saint Mary of Agreda.

If Jesus was just a clever, wise or insightful man, his entire life was essentially wasted, and on top of that he is recorded as lying about his abilities. All of the serious documentation we have available from the time (and there's a surprising amount of it) indicates that he was considerably more than that. Jesus is better documented than any of the Caesars. There's also a heck of a lot of non-literate archaeological evidence which is very difficult to explain if the canonical record is not reliable.

But in everyday life "we're all individuals" and will carry on believing what the majority tell us. "I'm not!"

There isn't much doubt that Jesus existed, as we continue to find evidence. The real question is, "What does it mean?"

That Jesus existed is hardly worth debating. Who he was is a more serious topic. If Jesus is who he claimed to be, it should be of enormous significance to you.

(I'm still pissed that the SOBs reordered the Narnia books in current collections. How can you possibly appreciate The Magician's Nephew without having read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Stupidheads.)

The reordering was done in an attempt to honor C.S. Lewis's wishes. A couple of quotes, for more information:

HarperCollins and the C.S. Lewis companiy "renumbered the entire Chronicles of Narnia on the basis of a letter Lewis wrote to a child suggesting that he preferred to read them in Narnian chronology rather than the order in which they were written." (source)

"It must be conceded that in a letter written in 1957 (published in 'Letters to Children'), Lewis did appear to state a mild preference for the chronological order. But in that same letter Lewis concluded: 'So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them.'" (source)

With that said, I prefer the original ordering. Oh well.

Personally, I think Nobel Committee has set a pretty dangerous precedent that pretty much punishes researches who have views which deviate from majority's point of view.

Would Nobel Committee award a Nobel prize to a researcher who finds a cure for cancer or AIDS and who is also a holocaust denier or a neo-nazi? NOTE: I'm not putting creationists in the same category... I'm just using an extreme example.

More here: Did Nobel Committee Ignore MRI Creator Because of Creationism?

Can we just assume for a minute that George Lucas is correct about the power of myth? There are really a finite number of themes and stories to be told, because really as humans we don't have much beyond the small cache of stories we find compelling to see in a movie theater, and the cache of movies that hollywood churns out is even a smaller subset of that.

So, while people can expulse such gems as From Davey and Goliath to Homer and Ned Humorous(?) Matrix Fan Fiction, it would appear that these people are smart enough to take an idea and run with it, but not to come up with something original.

Also, isn't the overanalization of things like the Matrix a little dangerous? If you give creedence to the spiritual and intellectual properties of this movie and give it value above and beyond it's pure entertainment qualities, doesn't that open the door for the validation of critical analysis and admit that there's more than meets the eye?

The more you try to read into something, the more likely you're going to see what you want to see.

I just like bullet-time kung-fu and things blowing up. I don't feel any violent urges after seeing Reloaded, Neo isn't Christ, and I still have a firm grip on my reality filteres to allow me to know what's spiritually meaningful, and what's 2 hours of entertainment.

Here's an example I found on the Web. In the original version of this scene from Titanic (shown on the left...her naked chest is blurred, which rather detracts from the point), Kate Winslet is lying nude on the couch while Leo draws her. In the 'revised' version from MovieMask, she's chastely wearing a blouse.

Now Titanic ain't exactly Citizen Kane, but this is wrong on so many levels. It's called artistic vision, folks, and it's not to be taried with. Artists have very few rights in our culture, but presenting their art the way they intended is one of them.

Because I believe that any unauthorized change to a work of art is unforgivable, I'm reticent to address specific cases, but I can't resist. In this case, this is a critical scene in the film's romantic sub-plot. When Winslet's character, Rose, exposes herself hear to Jack, it is a statement of the changes in her that he has engendered. It is Rose's pronouncement of independence. Now it'sjust a scene about the heroine getting drawn.Furthermore, the historical details of costume and scenography received exacting detail in this film. Which historian picked out Winslet's digital ensemble? Dave, the video editing guy?

MovieMask ('You're gonna love it!' says product endorser Marie Osmond) and its brethren offer sanitized versions of, among others, Fight Club, Saving Private Ryan, Schlinder's List and Training Day. In all of these films, the violence is crucial to the artwork's theme. Not just plot or setting,but theme--the films' central messages. The idea of violence as therapy is at the centre of Fight Club. The first twenty-six minutes of Saving Private Ryan represent one of the most moving and powerful depictions of war in cinematic history. To cleanse them of violence is to strip them of their power. To edit Schlinder's List, deeply disrepects the trials of the Jewish people. Without drugs, violence and foul language, Training Day is Turner & Hooch with goatees.

Much of the market for this product comes from Christians in the United States. Why do I say this? It's espoused on Christian sites like this, CleanFlicks is based in Utah and the Moral Majority has a rich history of censorship. Why do these people want to see these films in the first place, if they're morally dubious? So they can chat about Matt Damon around the water cooler? Tough luck. You either opt in to our culture of violence and sex or you opt out.

But that's not true...if you're only opposed to violence, go see My Big Fat Greek Wedding. If you're opposed to sex and foul lanugage, you're pretty safe watching The Bourne Identity or Panic Room. If you're opposed to both, try The Man Who Wasn't There or Star Wars or Shrek. Unless you're particularly conservative, you've got lots of options. Exercise discretion. I do it, my mother does it and so can you. Alternately, you can suffer alone on your moral high-ground.

But that's not true, either. There's a massive multi-million dollar industry in Christian music, films and books. You can consume art for a lifetime and not hear a secular note, view a Hollywood frame or read an aetheist page. In fact, from what I can tell, the per-capita expenditure on Christian art among Christians is way above the secular average. All the more power to them.

Ultimately, this type of censorship is worse than banning art outright. This way, people have the impression that they've seen a film (why stop there? Shall we cover up Michaelangelo's David's naughty bits?) when they've seen a toothless abberation, a mere shadow of the actual artwork. To the users of MovieMask's and CleanFlicks's and a dozen others' services, do everybody a favour: either watch original films that you're comfortable with or, better yet, just throw out your TV.

You don't know of enough tech sites to claim that "almost every tech site" banded together on something. No one does.

Many people do a lot of writing about the simps, so why not.
Also, check out
From Davey & Goliath to Homer and Ned. I'll but you didn't expect to find it there.

Many people do a lot of writing about the simps, so why not.
Also, check out
From Davey & Goliath to Homer and Ned. I'll but you didn't expect to find it there.

The sites you put up as examples are sites where the user interest is nonexistant. I don't care about a "cute lil' cat" or "cute lil'" anythings, for that matter. I don't think I'm alone among netizens for that. And I don't think that "Magick" has a huge following either.

However, if you want a media system and a belief system that are popular, Star Wars and Christianity are both doing fine.

And sites become popular overnight! Need I remind you of the dancing hamsters and "All your base" phenomena that took the nation by storm inexplicably with only wierdness to pull them along?