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i believe that life came from death, but i have no documentation to support it. macro-evolution, anyone?
even worse, you claim it is "science."
people with faith based belief systems ought not criticize others with a, well, faith based belief system.
godless macro-evolution has a lot of holes in it. stop being dishonest and pretending like it doesn't.
Remember, Tom Ridge said that Homeland Security is about protecting "the American way of life, the most important job of government."
These officers are part of Homeland Security. They are RESPONSIBLE for protecting our homes and our children and our way of life. The department was formed exactly so that we can protect American values.
If they can't stop porn, we will have lost to the terrorists and the environmentalists and those who are more interested in godless "constitutional liberties".
See John Taylor Gatto:h tmt m
"The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher's Intimate Investigation
Into The Problem Of Modern Schooling"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.h
For example:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/2e.htm
"I have little doubt the fantastic wealth of American big business is psychologically and procedurally grounded in our form of schooling. The training field for these grotesque human qualities is the classroom. Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy, generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires such a clientele. A small business, small farm economy like that of the Amish requires individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and universal participation; our own requires a managed mass of leveled, spiritless, anxious, familyless, friendless, godless, and obedient people who believe the difference between Cheers and Seinfeld is a subject worth arguing about."
The biggest problem with compulsary "public" education is that unlike "public" libraries, you can't (easily) escape by just walking out the door. (Well, you could for a day or two and then the police machinery related to truancy will start grinding on you, unless it is appeased in other ways.) Most "private" education is little better in the compulsary aspects or preventing bullying.
While this may seem paradoxical, as you continue your quest for spritiual growth, consider the idea that the bullies you faced are in some sense just as much victims of those systems as you were.
A good resource:
http://www.bullyonline.org/
http://www.bullyonline.org/schoolbully/index.htm
http://www.bullyonline.org/schoolbully/myths.htm
Example from the myths page: "Children have it drummed into them from the moment they are born that they must not hit, punch, kick, bite, scratch, pull, push, poke or use any form of physical violence. Children are often punished - sometimes brutally and humiliatingly - for exhibiting any form of violent behaviour. Some adults then criticise children for not using violence when faced with a thug. Child targets of bullying also know (better than adults) that if they retaliate physically, the bully will feign victimhood (often with a convincing flood of tears) and the responsible adults will be fooled into believing that the target is the bully and the bully is the target. The (real) target is then punished by the adults whilst the bully looks on, enjoying every moment. Once the adults turn their backs, the bully starts on their target again. Targets are also people with high moral integrity, a well-developed sense of moral values, and a clear understanding of the need to resolve conflict with dialogue. This is how we teach children to behave and how society demands that children behave. We should therefore not be surprised when targets of bullying display their maturity by going to great lengths to resolve the violent acts committed towards them with dialogue rather than with fists or feet. Trying to resolving conflict with dialogue is a hallmark of integrity and strength of character. Bullying is a hallmark of lack of integrity and weakness of character."
Well, no, unless you are willing to redefine "many" as "less then 1%". CPUSA was rather popular in some areas in the period before WWII (and during WWII, when the Soviets were "noble allies" in fight against Nazism). I think its peak card-carying membership was at one time 85,000. And then of course there are the affiliates or rival socialist and communist movements of that time, like the Socialist Workers Party etc and so on. Now add various disorganised and fragmented student movements and you got a good chance of more then a half a million people involved in some small degree. All in all, there were no more then a few dozen of confirmed spies total originating from any direction of these organizations.
However, some (certainly not 100%) of his suspicions that many members of the CPUSA and others were spying for the Soviets were factually correct.
And it came recently to my attention that some Arabs might be members of Al-Queda. And also, equally shockingly, that some Americans can be members of right wing terrorist organisations involved in bombing of federal buildings and abortion clinics. So if I proceed to treat every Arab and American as a terrorist, I will, according to glorious investigative logic of McCarthy's, be "100% correct" in "some" of my suspicions. Am I missing something? This could bring a revolution in crime fighting. I mean some blacks and South Americans are for certain drug dealers. All one has to do to get this crime problem sovled is to round up all blacks and South Americans! And all husbands, as they might be wife-beaters. And wives because they might be engaged in gambling. Etc and so on. "100% accuracy" in "some of my suspicions" whole "100% of the time!". Great plan or what?
The whole logic of your argument (and those writing various silly revisionist books) is hopelessly faulty. Yes, there were some in CPUSA who were recruited. But they were rare and low priority material, because as I explained already, they make lousy spies. The best spies are those who are not in any way related to the movment and beyond suspicion. If I were a KGB recruiter, I would look for some "underappreciated", egoistical, megalomaniac and greedy Young Republicans (those KGB dudes must have been spoiling for choice all the time). And for all kinds of people of all sorts of affiliations except socialist/communist ones. Which is apparently precisely what KGB did, judging from the spies actually caught after they have already done substantial damage. It got so bad that the self-proclaimed "spy" loons like Agee had to go look for the KGB (who were not exactly thrilled at the prospect).
(Your list of "All American Spies" contains names that came decades after McCarthyism swept the nation, by the way.)
That is likely because the list was labeled "most famous Soviet spies". Who happened to operate and be eventually discovered long after McCarthy (with the exception of Rosenbergs).
But I've often wondered if his some of his earlier persecutions were fueled by information gleaned from the VENONA project. Did he have his own inside person in the FBI (perhaps on the VENONA project) feeding him those names?
VENONA and most of the activities of FBI of that time were highly suspect and there were many vicious right-wing ideologues in the ranks of organisations like FBI (and still are) who saw it their mission in life to stomp out all the "Godless Atheistic Communist Vermin" by any means neccessary. McCarty was a natural ally and an excellent conduit for their vendettas. So there would be no surprise that some frustrated FBI operative, whose efforts to lock up all leftists were thwarted by things like the habeas corpus and so he sought to circumnavigate the "problem" by feeding McCarthy names and other info on his "suspects". I personally take findings of VENONA and similar projects with a gigiantic grain of salt, not only
But what about a global coincidence theory ?
Or, it might be the fault of the sun - we didn't have sun 100 years ago, right ?
Hey, Michael Crichton himself says this global warming thing is not real - I guess you hippie pinko lesbian communist godless gay-marrying terrorists would claim that global warming is real while Jurassic Park isn't ?
And think of all the horrors that would happen if we cut down fuel consumption for nothing: our children would have to breathe this totally clean and transparent air, won't have to go to war for oil, won't have crazy gas prices.
I'm telling you, I'm not going to believe into this "global warming" thing unless you can explain me how it's all Clinton's fault.
Um, I am Catholic and no not pay money for forgiveness, that has been free at least since Vatican II, maybe even before that.
Yes we have physical representations of religious figures, artwork and such, but no Catholic I know believes a statue of Mary has some sort of power, any reverence expressed towards an "idol" - as you call it - is not directed towards the physical item...simply a means of outward expression of one's feeling of devotion, faith, respect, etc. Many people simply consider this kind of expression a beautiful action, not worshipping a statue.
Mary is definately not God and no Catholic claims her to be otherwise. However some people find personal strength in reflecting on Mary or the saints, angels, and the like...they say "well Mary helped me through this" or "St Francis helped me through that" or "My guardian angel protected me from those other things" what really happens is that they have found strength and guidance in their reflection on these people, through prayer or otherwise. Prayer is not always a worship thing but can be more of a meditation on the subject or content of the prayer as usually one can clear their mind and focus on the content and meaning of the prayer. People call it "praying to some saint or for some thing" but when you get down to it I don't really think people understand what is really happening when they do...but that is ok because I think God understands that even if these people think and say they pray "to" a saint, etc that they really are not doing that.
About marriage and priests/nuns, the bible does say something about that: (from 1 Corinthians 7):
"An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs--how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world--how he can please his wife-- and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world--how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. "
I think the official Catholic translation uses God instead of Lord, but the quote is pretty much the same - this is one of the ideas behind the reason for unmarried priests/nuns. The Catholic church does follow what the Bible says, the issue is how different denominations of Christianity interpret what the Bible actually means.
If a priest or nun is having issues maintaining their celibacy, or even worse - finding a very improper outlet in parish children, then they should find help or leave/be ejected from religious line of work. There is nothing wrong with the concept of unmarried priests/nuns, however most Catholics do agree that what is going on with priests now is not a good thing and would like to see a more heavy handed response....so do not make so many assumptions about what mainstream Catholics believe, cause just like anything, the extremists and fundies in any walk of life will always make the most noise and draw the most attention and appear to be the majority when in fact they are not, and most priests do not represent what people outside the Catholic faith perceieve them to represent. You know the Pope supports Evolution? Maybe not in the Godless, secular view that an atheist would take, but he does take a pro-evolution position. My personal view is that the Bible and science are both correct concerning how everything was created. They do not conflict with each other. And you know what? No one I know understands how I came to that conclusion even when I explain it to them.
Well, sounds like Griffin in one of those damn godless liberals. "Open scientific inquiry," Hrrmmph! This is a *government* organization, dammit! You say what the President says! "Science is respected and protected and highly valued by the administration..." That's incorrect. He should have said "*Some* science..." Like I.D. and such. Let's see how long Griffin will keep his job... Yeah, just me being cynical. RP
I advise that we send her ass to GitMo or Area 49 (used for cyborgs, not aliens, located in California, of course) for some serious probing- let Congressmen Conyers and Sensenbrenner plug her analog hole for a little while!
How many Chinese died when we tried to install a Capitalist system in the 1900's?
When did Congress remove "favored trade status" because of Tiananmen Square ?
Why didn't we push the WTO not to accept China?
Why are my rights as an individual being erroded so a corporation can make money?
Communism wasn't a threat to America because it was Godless or totalitarian. It was a threat because it wasn't Capatalistic.
This is just a politcal cry from a Democrat who has become confused because of the last 20 years of "moderation", ie: the turn of his party away from the people toward money.
The company doing the threatening is in Russia! That means they are godless red commies
You're a little out of date. Today they'd be the Russian Mob.
-jcr
The company doing the threatening is in Russia! That means they are godless red commies, working to undermine the US freedom of speech and bring communism to the US. Supporting commies in anything they do makes you a terrorist! You even allude to "red-blooded" americans! My blood ain't red like you commie freaks, it's red, white, and blue. ...and keep your damn flouride out of my water supply you commie!
I'm awake! By the way the Earth is mine. I'm an American and damn proud of it!!!
I'm sick of you jealous pussys and Godless hippies bellyaching over global warming. The Godless hippies in America need to allow America to build windpower and nuclear power plants - but they stand in the way of every action we take. They want the Earth to go back to a time when people and goats were more intimate and slept in the same house.
Why can't we work together to build a world where all people can have a 6000 sq. ft. home plus attached maids quarters and 3 SUVs in the driveway? A world of clean power and good jobs with low taxes so everyone can enjoy being American. It's so much fun lounging on my strato-lounger, drinking a beer and watching the big game. You should try it instead of pissing and moaning all the time.
Rise up slaves of european socialism and demand low taxes. Tell the state to stop thinking for you. Tell them to lower your taxes and enjoy economic freedom. It's the only way out of the Matrix. Tell your taskmasters that power comes from the people to the government - not the reverse! Refuse to take the test in 8th grade that dertermines your place in the socialist machine. Remember, if Einstein had knuckled under to the european wet-dream he'd had stayed a patent clerk his entire life or perhaps a street sweeper.
Spoken in my best military sergeant voice...
Make of that what you will.
Buh, who am I kidding, this is a pro-US blog and you guys hate hearing about atrocities committed under your flag, so you'll just moderate this down to -1. You'll entirely miss the point that you can easily commit evil by saying "it's better than nothing at all". Sometimes "nothing at all" is the only non-evil option. Google is helping the Chinese government to censor information; nothing at all was the non-evil option, instead Google went for the minor beatings in order to SPREAD FREEDOM.
What facts? That anyone left of Atila the Hun is an ultra-leftie Godless commie?
Religion is the wool pulled over our eyes. Some people find that comforting and I don't fault them their beliefs. But if you were to ask me if someone with wool over their eyes can see clearly I will say no they can't. There are many brilliant people who believe in god and an afterlife. People smarter than you or I. I would not consider them to be stupid or inferior. However I would consider their belief to be illogical and irrational given the breadth of scientific knowledge and enlightenment. Athiests look at creationists the same way as you would look at an adult who still believed in the easter bunny or believed that baby's come from storks. We usually feel a little sorry for them but we can be accomidating and let them believe what they want. However if they try to start teaching those absurd ideas in a classroom in a public school we draw issue with that. To me, trying to teach ID in a science classroom is not any different from trying to teach that babies come from storks in a health or parenting class. I'm an athiest and I think I would have been one sooner had I not been afraid. It's like turning the breaker off in your house and then sticking a key into an electrical socket. Yes you know the power is off, but what if? Your told that there is a god when your a kid and that you will go to hell if you don't follow him. You grow up and don't see any evidence of god in the world. You can use logic to understand that there can't be a god. But that nagging "what if" makes you hesitate to be blasphemous because if your wrong your going to hell. Some people never get past this point and they either swing back to full blown religion, or else they stay halfway and become agnostic. They don't believe in any particular religion but won't deny the existence of a supreme being "just in case". Initially being an athiest is scary. When you die your dead, no after life. There are no miracles. There is no order or meaning to the universe. When bad things happen its random and meaningless. You have nothingto fall back on. No crutch to shield your fragile person from the harsh realities of existence. But at the same time the enlightenment is completely worth it. It's like Socrates story of a man living in a cave being too afraid to go outside where there is no roof, only the empty blackness of the sky. The entire universe of wonder could be going on outside his cave and he would never know because he is too afraid to change his world. I find it hard to trust people under a relgious influence to make rational decisions because they sometimes do things that are irrational, but in the name of a god. Like Bush talking about his crusade or that god wanted him to go to Iraq. That scares the crap out of me. What if god told him that freedom was an illusion and that the only path to freedom lay in faith. What if he made non christians 2nd class citizens. It worries me that Texas has a constitution that says no godless person can hold political office. Religion does not give way to logic. It is an irrational and illogical device that is used to control people. So in some ways, people who are religious or believe in god, are for lack of a better word, stupid.
While I don't see intelligent design as much of a scientific theory, it is an equally valid alternate viewpoint. It's just different. Belief that God had a hand in creating our universe does not make a person stupid, I believe in intelligent design, and odds are that by a measurement of raw intelligence I'm smarter than you are. Nothing unusual or immodest about that, I'm smarter than most people, the average IQ is 100, and I'm well above that.
You, however, should know better than to generalize about a population just because they don't think the same as you. Last I checked people are free to think how they want to, something you as a scientist should really appreciate.
So why then do you give such an irrational, emotional response? It sounds little different than the irrational responses people make in defense of ID. Perhaps this is because there is more in common between you and right wing Christians than you would like to admit. I think this is because you view evolution as not just a theory, but a religion of sorts. It's your (godless) religion of how you came into being, which is a not an unusual concept for a religion by any means.
Let's be truthful here. Evolution is a theory, not a fact. There is some good evidence for evolution, but it's not ironclad. Clearly species not only adapt but it follows logically that such adaptations over time can lead to new species. What is a species anyway but a arbitrary classification by us? This does not mean that it is logical for a soup of non-living organic molecules to become a human with trillions of cells, each cell a complex organism functioning together, each doing it's part in the whole. I'm not saying it's impossible, but by no means is it the only possible explanation, and you deceive yourself if you think otherwise.
And even if that's the way it happened, I would like to point out that this universe had a beginning some 13 billion years ago, where an enormous explosion of energy far in excess of all the mass of all the matter in the universe multiplied by the speed of light squared brought everything we know into being. This is not a cyclical event, because it has both a beginning, and if the universe keeps expanding (as science tells us it seems to be) it will have a cold, dark end. I think that the idea that God provided that initial matter and that initial energy along with the very fundamental 'code' of this universe itself (which we as scientists are only reverse-engineering) is far more plausible than your theory that it "just happened".
So before you make a fool out of yourself by mocking what you do not understand, and get carried away in your own importance and puff up with pride, just remember we're just mammals on one tiny little dust ball in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, amongst hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars. Don't EVER think that you are even close to understanding it all! One day, hopefully not too soon, you'll find this out for yourself, because everybody regardless of their beliefs gets to see the truth after they die. And with all possible sincerity I pray that you will find the truth before then. God doesn't go away just because you stop believing in him.
So is it wrong to teach students that there is a (non-scientific) alternative to evolution? No, but it has no place in a science class, let them teach it outside the banner of science.
Bears?
godless killing machines without a soul
Oh wait, this is Oracle...
The problem with ID is that its proponents are making a passive/aggressive attack upon (the godless) theory of evolution bc they claim that Evolution has "gaps" or fails to explain everything about the existence of organisms. They are going after what they perceive is a weakness and in there ignorance running into is strength. Like all theories, Evolution evolves. It is subjected to the scientific method of test and observation. If it is found lacking, corrections are made to improve its accuracy. And this is the crux of the Creationists argument. According to them, since Evolution is subject to corrections then it doesn't have to be accepted as gospel truth. Therefore, *ANYTHING* is possible including their competing "theory" which is based on intuition and faith instead of science. Let me be clear here. The creationist are using a variation of the Fallacy of the Stolen Concept. The concept they are stealing is what constitutes the basis of proof. Since reason, logic, and observation are used to enhance or invalidate prior scientific knowledge that was based on reason, logic, and observation then this invalidate reason, logic, and scientific observation(!) In other words they want to USE logic to make a logical argument that logic doesn't work therefore we should turn to faith instead. What they are throwing out with the bathwater is that when science overturns previously held truths it replaces it with something better based on reason, not faith. This is really an attack on how we acquire knowledge as a species. Do we assume the awesome responsibility of thinking for ourselves and learn from our errors? Or, do we abdicate our brains, stop thinking and let mystic faith provide the answers. Human knowledge is not omnipotent, nor is completely impotent either. Just because I can't prove Fermat's Last Theoremhttp://mathworld.wolfram.com/FermatsLastThe orem.html does not mean that i dont know 1+1=2. Human knowledge is a PROCESS of discovery and the scientific community should not be afraid to admit it.
However, their are simply too many questions a scientist cannot answer because there is no way for them to apply the scientific method in finding the answers. For instance, they cannot answer questions like...
Where did the material that exploded in the big bang come from?
Why is the universe expanding at an ever increasing speed? What is the force causing it to speed up?
How can you create life from non-living matter? How did evolution do it?
I could go on and on... but for time sake...
Regarding the Bible, yes, you are correct that a person should look at the history of the Bible. Yes, there are inaccurate translations out there (King James perhaps the most notable) and other books too. However, we could use your smurf argument yet again! :)
If one of the scientists that created the atomic bomb made his feelings about smurfs public, people would think the guy was a bit strange at least. Many people that supposedly follow the Bible have some pretty stange ideas about Jesus, Christianity, God, etc... most of it having nothing to do with the Bible at all. However, since they call themselves Christians, people look down on the Bible because they associate the insanity of the people that claim to follow it.
For instance, Ghandi said he loved Christ but he hated Christians. Yes, most people who claim they follow Christ have never read the Bible or know much about the man... they are Christians by default... their parents were Christians and so they are. They don't follow Jesus Christ or his teachings in any way. This, obviously isn't true of everyone calling themself a Christian, but true of many. I ask people who call themselves Christians if they have read the Bible from cover to cover and most say they have not. Very few could tell you anything about Jesus, other than... you gotta believe! So many people are turned away from the Bible because of the poor conduct of those claiming to follow it.
However, archeologists whether athiest, agnostic, or Christian, almost all of them believe that Jesus was a real historical person. The Bible (Many modern translations are more accurate because of the dramatically increased availablity of ancient scrolls to refer to. KJ was published in 1611 from eight scrolls. Today we have several thousand to compare from.) is true and actually proves itself to be so by its contents. Prophecies have taken place as it recorded to the very detail. So much so that those who oppose the Bible say they were written after the fact... because they had to be... no man could have just guessed at those events. Many of the ancient scrolls we have today contain prophecies that were fulfilled hundreds of years later. If one takes the time to look at the evidence, they will see. Most people don't want to investigate because they are not that interested.
So your right... most people prefer to have a comfortable religion... rather than a true one. That does not mean a true religion does not exist.
Some quotes from scientists you might find interesting.
Dr. Emery S. Dunfee - Physics
"One wonders why, with all the evidence, the (Godless) theory of evolution still persists. One major reason is that many people have a sort of vested interest in this theory. Jobs would be lost,
> I think you forgot the first adjective: "smug".
Also arrogant, bigoted, intolerant and a host of other similar words. The submitter exemplifies everything wrong with the godless left in exactly the same way Pat Robertson represents the worst aspects of the religious right.
Personally I'm an agnostic, but if I were going to be marooned on a desert island with a dozen of either faction I'd probably take the fundies. Equally misguided views on philosophy but generally better people to be around since the leftists are generally nasty and rather unstable, having been educated beyond their native intelligence.
One of the biggest problems with the heathen left being they tend to be more likely to violate what I call Freedom 0: The Right to be Wrong. Sure the fundies are probably wrong on Evolution. But I'm willing to let them BE wrong until such a time as they can be convinced otherwise. The average leftie wants nothing to do with that notion, they are the Chosen, the Elite; Thus they are Right and hellbent on imposing their Correct views on the "ignorant" by force. The fundies in Kansas don't want their kids taught Evolution, but they aren't campaigning to force Boston's public schools to teach from the Book of Genesis.