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Japan Tsunami = massive natural disaster - GUN TOTING POPULATION -> no looting & roving gangs -> no murder, assault -> no need for way to "protect" self and family

Thai Tsunami = massive natural disaster - GUN TOTING POPULATION -> no looting & roving gangs -> no murder, assault -> no need for way to "protect" self and family

See a pattern here?

Yes, I do see a pattern - you either don't know what you are talking about or are making things up.

There was looting in Thailand after the 2004 Tsunami (and after their recent unrest), and in Japan now.

Thailand 2004: Thai looters cash in on tsunami destruction
Thailand 2010: Thai forces to fire on looters and arsonists
Japan 2011: Japan earthquake: Looting reported by desperate survivors

Now, is it firearms that causes people to form mobs with ill intent? Apparently not as they will form with makeshift weapons:

Recently in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, dozens of men, armed with machetes and make-shift weapons, broke into and looted stores along the capital's main commercial street. Natural Disasters in Chile and Haiti the Psychology of Looting

And what of Sweden, who lost a number of citizens in the 2004 disaster in Thailand?

Even famously law-abiding Sweden and Norway have been hit by scammers who have robbed and looted the homes of tourists who vanished in the chaos.

"It is, unfortunately, a reality that people who are known to be missing . . . have had their homes gone through and partly emptied," Swedish State Secretary Lars Danielsson said.......

Fearing an outbreak of looting akin to what occurred after the 1994 sinking of the ferryboat Estonia that killed 551 Swedes, police refused to release the names of the dead and missing. Somehow, though, the names got out, and now police are standing watch over hundreds of homes scattered across the country. Gangs pillage tsunami villages, stealing corpses & selling orphans

And more of the same: Robbery, rape and kidnap

Sri Lanka Churches Worried about Looting in Tsunami-hit Areas

Referring to the looters, the Sri Lanka church council said: "We appeal to them to kindly desist from such dastardly conduct and join with the several who are helping those in need," as it urged more church volunteers and others to join in the relief work.

The criticism came after reports that thugs were looting homes of some tsunami victims and rapists were preying on homeless survivors.

"We have received reports of incidents of rape, gang rape, molestation and physical abuse of women and girls in the course of unsupervised rescue operations," the Women and Media Collective group in Sri Lanka was quoted saying by the Reuters news agency.

But don't only bad people have guns? No. For example, Dr. Martin Luther King owned guns for protection.

I also suggest that you become clear on this point: Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone . This has been the law for quite some time.

You can't necessarily count on the police:

If you look at the way English society was in the 18th century, especially in the Anglican church you can see it as a very class driven society. In the 18th century the general idea of the population was that God knew who was saved and who wasn't and therefore he had already picked those whom He had saved. There was also the notion that He had shown favor to His people with the form of wealth so the poor not only felt was there not a reason to be thrifty but there was no reason to live a moral life.

When the Wesleys and others started preaching to the poor that they could and would be saved by Grace many turned away from raucous lives. Also when John Wesley preached that they should "Gain all they can; Save all they can; Give all they can" it opened up a new idea to many that they can better themselves. Wesley's Sermon #50 talks about his view of bettering the poor which instills the very ideas of what became Middle Class values.

Just another piece of the huge puzzle of 18th century society.

The Crusaders explicitly repeated Joshua 6, up to and including murdering everyone in Jericho -- man, woman and child.

There is clearly a lot of history you do not know. Which of us is being ignorant and aggressive?

Oh wait, they already are. In 138 countries. But not the US.

It's a tragedy.

I, for one, would prefer never to see Slashdot articles about technologies meant for killing people.

There is a machine to clear a landmine field. There's a picture in this article, and if you catch it, an episode of Modern Marvels or something on the History Channel or the Discovery Channel about it.

It doesn't really contradict what you say about there being no easy way, though; this is the "easiest" but I still wouldn't call it easy. It's reasonably safe compared to any other technique, but still dangerous.

Nah, more like a Bishop declared that these 27(NT) books are the offical list. And then the Catholics burned anyone who disagreed with this list(A little historical paraphrasing but essentially correct)

http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/canonselect.html#Ath anasius

Or how about the OT books. The so called "apocraphal" books. These were books in the jewish canon before and during Jesus' life but were removed later. Mostly the messianic books becuse the jews were tired of all the messiah crawling out of the wood work. The current list of OT books were proposed by Martin Luther.

Gaah, religious discussions are like wrestling a pig. All you do is get dirty and irritate the pig.

My church has a list of contents for "flood buckets" which people can donate for relief efforts. I know that you won't be bringing many of these to pass out to families, but perhaps their contents will help you clean up. See print-friendly version here: http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/print/kits/floodbucket.s tm

        * 5-gallon bucket with resealable lid
        * Bleach (two 1-quart or one 82 oz. bottle.)
        * 5 scouring pads
        * 7 Sponges
        * 1 scrub brush
        * 18 cleaning towels (reusable wipes)
        * Liquid laundry detergent (two 25 oz. or one 50 oz. bottle)
        * 1 household cleaner, 12-16 oz. bottle
        * Disinfectant dish soap, 16-28 oz. bottle
        * 50 clothes pins
        * Clothes line (two 50 ft. or one 100 ft.)
        * 5 dust masks
        * 2 pair latex gloves
        * 1 pair work gloves
        * 24-bag roll of heavy-duty trash bags, 33-45 gallon (remove roll from box before placing in bucket)
        * 1 Insect repellant spray, 6-14 oz. can (If aerosol, cans must have protective caps.)
        * 1 Air freshener, 8 or 9 oz. can (If aerosol, cans must have protective caps.)

AmeriCares:americares.org

Baton Rouge Area Foundation(BRAF): 877.387.6126 or braf.org

Episcopal Relief & Development: 1-800-334-7626 or www.er-d.org

United Methodist Committee on Relief: 1-800-554-8583 or gbgm-umc.org/umcor/emergency/hurricanes/2005

Salvation Army: 1-800-SAL-ARMY or www.salvationarmyusa.org

Catholic Charities: 1-800-919-9338 or www.catholiccharitiesusa.org

FEMA Charity tips: www.fema.gov/rrr/help2.shtm

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster: www.nvoad.org

Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: www.la-spca.org

Operation Blessing: 1-800-436-6348 or www.ob.org

America's Second Harvest: 1-800-344-8070 or www.secondharvest.org

Adventist Community Services: 1-800-381-7171 or www.adventist.communityservices.org

Christian Disaster Response: 1-941-956-5183 or 1-941-551-9554 or www.cdresponse.org/cdrhome.html

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee: 1-800-848-5818 or www.crwrc.org

Church World Service: 1-800-297-1516 or www.churchworldservice.org

Convoy of Hope: 1-417-823-8998 or www.convoyofhope.org

Lutheran Disaster Response: 1-800-638-3522 or www.elca.org/disaster

Mennonite Disaster Service: 1-717-859-2210 or www.mds.mennonite.net

Nazarene Disaster Response: 1-888-256-5886 or www.nazarenedisasterresponse.org

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: 1-800-872-3283 or www.pcusa.org/pda

Southern Baptist Convention - Disaster Relief: 1-800-462-8657, ext. 6440 or www.namb.net

By the way, according to the bible, the earth was created around 7000 years ago.

The oldest tree in the world is in California.
It is 4200 years old.
That's an old tree, but if this world is billions of years old, why isn't there an older one?

The oldest and biggest reefs in the world are outside the coast of Australia. The Great Barrier Reefs. After a 30 year study, several groups of scientists all came to the conclusion that the reef had to be less than 4300 years old.
That's some pretty old reef. But once again, with a billion year old world, shouldn't that be WAAY older?

And before anyone mentions Carbon14 dating.. Actually :) go ahead. I'd love to show you just how sketchy that 'science' gets going near / past the half life (5730 years)

The are so many different simple things that we can find in nature that really put a kink in the entire evolution viewpoint.

If you seriously don't know what the Byzantine Empire is and how the invasion of it is what caused the Crusades, you really should go away and shut up until you have enough basic knowledge to form an opinion that isn't an utter waste of our time.

However, whatever their public motives were, Crusdares manifested them-self through raping and pillaging everything in their way including their Christian "brothers". Search for "The Sack of Constantinople". For example here. This is still a big sore point in relations between Western and Easter (Orthodox) churches. The hypocrisy of these Crusades is unbelievable, for example the infamous forth Crusade was called by Pope Innocent III. How could he claim his innocence with a straight is unknown.

Can you provide a cite? What have they done?

Millions were killed during the Korean War, which was a clear-cut case of aggression by the North, and at least some of those deaths can be reasonably blamed on them.

Millions are being killed by lack of food. http://gbgm-umc.org/asia-pacific/korea/brfsum2.htm l claims that between 900,000 and 2.4 million people had been killed during a three-year period, and that was as of 1998.

Some people blame a number of the current famines on corporations.

I don't understand how someone could say that. The famines are a combination of natural disaster and insane Soviet-style agriculture. The same kind of policies that killed millions in the USSR and China are killing millions in North Korea.

But even without that, makeing a huge area a toxic waste dump hurts tons of people (E St Louis?), dumping toxins into wastewater, sending old computers to thialand, leaking out some toxic gas.... doing all those is pretty evil and even tho the last is usually an accident, swarming one's way out of paying is evil. How walmart and coke treats their workers is evil, how the garmet companies treat their workers is evil.

Yes, but again, this is all retail-level evil. There is no organized oppression, no death camps or deliberate starvation, but "merely" tragic side effects of the pursuit of profit. Deliberately starving and killing millions is evil on a completely different scale.

We have faith in God because He has proven Himself trustworthy, time after time after time.

Maybe it has less to do with a problem with Jesus, who by many accounts seemed like a pretty decent guy, and a not-bad philospher to boot, and more to do with the insanity that has surrounded the bible and organized religion since the poor fella bought the farm.

Why do people live in places like this when they get hit _every year_ by tornados?

For those who care:
According to this page (#22), this was originally a quote from Lord Byron. Sans "motherfucker", of course.