Slashdot Mirror

As we all know, the US would never do anything of the kind -- say, at places such as Kent State, Wounded Knee or Waco. Of course, genocide -- of, say, Native Americans -- is right out. Government-approved slavery? Class- and race-biased justice? Fifty thousand hand-gun deaths a year? Student massacres in public schools? Shooting down civilian air flights? Blowing up of federal buildings in Kansas City? Nope. No way. Never happen. Not in "no blood on our hands" America -- the most violent society on earth.

Now those godless, commie Chinese -- hey, you can never tell what pure evil those sub-humans are capable of.

these (Chinese citizens) are the people who really need your help.

Thank you so much for your (highly paternalistic) concern. The problem is America has such a myopic sense of history -- as if the world didn't know how to take care of itself before 1776. But the Chinese were tending their affairs 4,000 years before America appeared on the scene to save the world from itself. And I imagine we'll still be here long after the US has faded to a distant memory.

There was a wise man once long ago who said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Words to live by.

It has nothing to do with mail. Nothing at all.

It *is* about email:

1. Certain people are censoring email on the basis of it not carrying their advertising. This is accomplished by sending large volumes of email such that non-advertising messages are drowned out. Spam inherently censors everything but the spam, by the sheer number of advertising messages sent.

2. Another company -- using the same ISP as Peacefire -- was in the spam business. They make (or attempt to make) their money by facilitating spam. They misrepresent their product to unsophisticated customers, selling it as a legitimate marketing business, when in reality it works by censoring non-advertising messages.

3. The ISP knowingly, with full understanding of what they were doing, enabled the spammer to operate, and gave them quarter. The ISP directly profited from spam.

4. The ISP could not possibly have been ignorant of what was happening. MAPS made many efforts over a period of months to educate the ISP. They recevied that education, and with full awareness of the ramifications of their actions continued giving support and doing commerce with the spammers/censors.

5. AboveNet, and many others, to protect their networks from the spam/pro-commerce-censorship, cut off traffic from the ISP.

6. Peacefire, once they discovered this, continued to do business with the anti-social network-DoSing godless communist censorial ISP.

7. Either Peacefire doesn't understand that spam is censorship, or they are hypocrites. Or they're just mad about being cut off and flaming AboveNet on general principles.

It's a good thing they lost control of it. I hope it crashes into someone, just to teach those godless heathens a lesson pertaining to the realms they should be mucking with.

What next, robots that build themselves???


-CoG

"And with HIS stripes we are healed"

> For adults, child porn shall be blocked

Child pornography is already illegal. This bill is more jowl-wagging moral posturing and doomed to die like the sacrificial lamb it is. Because when it is struck down, they can gain even more from the backlash against the godless heathen judges and politicians that killed it. Same trick the left does with affirmative action.

--

I always thought that the moral of the story in Frankenstein was nature vs. nurture. Not one of those "don't fuck with technology you godless atheists lest you be damning us all with your short-sightedness" themes. Stephen J. Gould wrote about the message of Frankenstein in his book `Dinosaur in a Haystack.' I suggest Katz, and anyone else who has similar feeling about the theme of Frankenstein, read it.

Also how can anyone legitimately endorce the belief that the path of ignorance is better to be on than the path to enlightenment.

Of course as I write this I realize that his review should be moderated (not possible but needs to be) to Flamebait. Gee, lets write a review endorsing the luddite philosophy to group of technology lovers and see what happens.

When I was in high school, some friends of mine and I tried to start a Magic: the Gathering club. I don't play the game anymore, but at the time, I was really into it. Unfortunately, due to parents' complaints about the "satanic nature" of the game, the school board refused to allow us to have such an organization. Needless to say, I was outraged. I told the story to my parents, who thought it was just as ridiculous. My mother decided to write an anonymous letter to the school board. This is the letter she wrote:

Dear School Board Members:

I have heard a rumor that some of the students at your school have proposed to start a chess club.

I wish to voice my strong objections to the use of school facilities for this purpose. In my opinion, chess is a vile, anti-democratic game that undermines American values by promoting feudalism, human sacrifice of queens, and demonic possession of castle towers.

Chess is full of insidious symbolism that subtly undermines the mental well-being of those who indulge in it. For example, the piece called a "knight" is symbolized by a horse head, confusing our youngsters' concept of human identity with bestial symbols used by organized crime. Furthermore, clergymen are maligned by portraying bishops as sly individuals whose diagonal movement indicates that their motives are never straightforward but always hidden and devious.

Chess is a dreadfully violent game. Children are taught to sacrifice and murder with callous disregard for the sanctity of individual life, especially that of the poor, who are treated as nothing more than pawns.

The origin of this deadly epidemic can be traced to the godless Russians, who, when they saw the decline of their own onerous communist government being caused by this evil influence, dealt a parting blow to the American democracy by infecting us with chess. However, we have one advantage over the Soviets that will allow us to succeed in stamping out chess where they failed -- FREEDOM!

Some may say that chess is "just a game". Don't be fooled by this! The people who play chess may think that it is just a game, but after hours and hours of play they become addicted to it and lose sight of reality. Pretty soon they'll be shooting up drugs and jumping out of windows to land on innocent bystanders.

Enough is enough! This MUST STOP!!!!

Most criticism of genetically engineered foods I've seen focuses too much on what it will do to humans -- cause cancer, etc. But the real danger is how it will react with the local ecology. If this new rice provides an unrivaled, bountiful food source for local pests, you could set off FE a misquito plague. The misquitos could carry a blood-born virus, and thousands, maybe millions could die. Or the vitamin-rich new rice crops could provide better habitat for fungus or disease, which could devestate the crop or, worse yet, spread it to adjacent "normal" rice plants or other crops in the neighboring field or in storage. The anti-starvation crop could set off a famine. Or the crops DNA could be too homogenous (the same), and the first disease/infection it gets could erradicate it 100% (opposed to say every other or every third plant, which will happen in a diverse population. Some members will be immune/resistant). Or the genetics of the rice could alter the adjacent soil chemistry and set off wildfire growth in a local weed, again providing new food/habitat for undesirable insects or diseases, or choking the waterways where rice is grown with overgrowth, which can cause flooding, and so on.

Sure these are propped up examples, but this is the kind of stuff that has happened in the past when humans have translocated other plants and animals. Just recently they figured out that if a brown bear doesn't eat its annual dose of riverside salmon, the local forest suffers because the salmon saturates the bear's stool with nitrogen and other nutrients that aren't as abundant in the food the bear usually eats (unless the tourist in question eats a lot of bacon). So they add this to the pros and cons of removing the dams from our state, which would deprive us of 25% of electricity, our least polluting source of it. It would cause a lot of air pollution to replace that electricity (and no one's going to use less of it). Is it because of what a bear buries behind a tree when no one's around to hear it? (Except for some hunters: Didja hear that?! Ewwwee!) Naw. But it will add to the "pile" of evidence the government will consider in deciding whether dams stay or go.

Anyway, I think the dietary danger to humans implied by these crop is exaggerated, founded on pure cowardice. Smoking is probably more dangerous. Or eating at fast food restaurants where the employees don't wash their hands. It's just a sequence of DNA that gets read by the ribosome and generates a protein. If you pick a well-understood protein, you have a decent chance to predict what it will do in the body. It's the ecological side effects of these crops that are harder to predict (and to fix after the fact). Meanwhile, the hysteria about GE crops focuses on what it will do to humans because it's a scare tactic that ignorant bystanders can visualize while they smoke, eat bacon, drink their coffee with BGH milk, booze, or processed sugar in it, and brush their teeth with floride from fertilizer and mining waste. Wash it all down with a glass of cool tap water. Mmm. You mean it might be bad for me? Those godless scientists...

What a perfect example of the kind of secular thinking that has led Western culture down the road to decadence and immorality.

A road traveled by so many great civilizations before. The road signs are not "Godlessness" but "Success, beware"

Rather than embracing over two thousand years of our cultural heritage,...

If two thousand year old theories are better than current ideas, then I guess pre-christian religions must be even better?

...you're perfectly willing to accept revisionist lies that claim that Christianity is some kind of "myth" rather than being the undoubted Truth of a kind that doesn't exist nowadays.

Funny, replying to someone calling christianity a myth by calling it the *undoubted* truth. Apparently at least someone has doubts... Actually a few billion people have.

The Truth is that the Bible teaches us of our place in the Universe and how to live our life in a decent, moral manner, so that all mankind will better itself and rise up to Heaven when they die. But oh no, you'd rather accept concepts like "moral relativism", an excuse for atheists to do what they want without fear of consequence

The bible has some nice ideas about how to live in a moral manner. Ideas that followers of most religions as well as atheists would agree upon. But why the emphasis? If the bible is correct, why should the God fearing worry? They are on the right side. The only reason to look down on the less God-fearing would be if you had your doubts about wether your moral behavoiur will pay off and you don't want others to have the benefits of a less godly life.

Unfortunately, science has said nothing, and indeed can say nothing, about the ultimate Truth of creation.

Fortuately, neither can the bible.
The only truth is: We don't know.

You make me sick.

You make me laugh. Gee, that *makes* you a better person!

Touche.

This typo may explain why some people responded to my post as if I had called them Godless heretics doomed to rot in Hell. Using MS software won't do that to you.

Yet, anyway. ;-)

Geoff

1 We have same number of people with drug problems now as we did 80 years ago before criminalization. Except now we have crminals. And 2 million people locked up on drug charges. Several thousand locked up for LIFE for selling a few ounces of weed.

2 We've seen the beginnings of a 'Protestant roots and awareness' movement (a quote not my words) to stop the tide of anti-Christian godlessness. This ought to chill you.

3 I'm on going to say this one million times. THE PRESIDENT CANNOT SET TAX POLICY THAT IS CONGRESS'S JOB. Any candidate for any office in the executive branch that tells you anything about what he or she is going to do about taxes is deceiving you or doesn't know basic civics.

4 What difference does an electoral system make where the difference between the candidates is almost zero. We would be better served with a random lottery. Who cares about if a candidate gets 10% of the pop vote but 0 electoral votes. Isn't it much more serious when a candidate wins with say 45% of the total vote and that vote represents 45% of the people who can vote. One could say that you no longer live in a Democracy with numbers like that.

5 Is this thing on? Who buys candidates? Organizations with serious money in in IP. Why? That is the way you legally justify beating the shit out of people via lawyers. Are you serious? IP Reform. You might as well ask for free water or clean air.

6 Encryption. Wonk wonk wonk wonk. Both candidates are asleep by now. That's a nit that propjockeys like you and me are concerned with. The real question is how many civil rights are you willing to give up in the face of some hysterical call to pull the wagons in a circle?

7 First off there has not been a rise. They've always been there on the front lines. You just notice it more now. Second: These are the little people. They don't count. Even the unions don't count. What counts is money.

8 Asteroid.....In case you haven't been listening we don't have the attention span to watch a music video unless there is something else going on on the screen at the same time. 2 minutes 45 tops. You expect anyone to give a shit or even pay attention to something that might happen in the next century? You expect someone to pay for it? I can't someone to come 3 times in a row to mow my lawn and you expect me to worry about taking years out to devise a complex solution for this.

9 National mission? This is our national mission. Its our fucking manifest destiny. Push ever onward until everyone in the world is us or just like us so we'll have something in common with the people we kill or let kill each other. Here's a quick quiz. See if you can find the thing that is not like the others:

Sports
News
Politics
Entertainment
Religion
Technology
Warfare
purple balloons

Did you get it? Did you find the one item that isn't another name for each of the other items. Good. Now don't look up, push another fucking cheeseburger in your face, beat your wife, turn on the tube and shut the fuck up while we run shit. If you have any stupid fucking questions about that we suggest you run naked into a police station, waving a gun.

That is all. Dismissed.

1) War on Drugs
by Tim Doran

The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?

The war on drugs has been an unqualified success. We have an incarceration rate higher than that of Communist China and jail 10 times as many non-violent marijuana offenders as murderers, rapists and armed robbers combined. Plus, we got to militarize the police, which was a lot of fun! And will help quiet dissent. The new police forces have been highly effective during this election cycle.


2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst

What will you do to protect the rights of atheists and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?

Nothing. I believe in putting the church back into the school, and teaching the 10 commandments in the classroom. Godless atheists are a relic of the failed Soviet era totalitarianism. Same goes for nutball religions like "shinto".


3) Why give a tax cut?
by funkman

With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year)

A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do. A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing.

Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?


To get votes and engage in social engineering; that's why I haven't proposed across-the-board tax cuts, but targeted ones instead. I don't actually believe in letting you control your life. And a public debt is a good thing; it keeps the bankers happy and allows the treasury to make money. Plus, it helps seniors, who vote, at the expense of young people, who don't vote and therefore don't matter.


4) electoral reform
by carleton

Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the electoral college system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?


I support making it difficult for so-called "third parties" to participate because it will loosen our control over America. I don't think that choice is a good thing; that there should be limits to freedom. This is why I support the Commission on Presidential Debates and the states' effort to increase the barriers to getting on the ballot. I also support campaign finance reform because it will help silence dissent. The electoral college system suits my purposes fine.


5) How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory

In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given.

Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?


I think the system is fine, including software patents and other protections for our large contributors. The little guy never invents anything anyway. I think napster is great -- American Democracy is like napster, you know.


6) Encryption....
by SquadBoy

Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private. Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?


I support giving law enforcement all the tools they need to do their job. And if letting citizens use encryption doesn't conflict with that, then they can use it.


7) Rising Political Protests
by sterno

In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?


I don't think they have any reason to be concerned. The move towards global international control of their lives through a system of interlocking treaties and financial systems is a good one; they will be happier for it. Sovreignty for individuals is overrated, and a dangerous idea when you get down to it. We can't have people running around doing whatever they want!


8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed

Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?


Well, not so much asteroids as rogue states, but yes. And if any rogue states gained control over any asteroids, we would blow them out of the sky to prevent their use against American interests.


9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223

I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission.

I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)


Of course we need a mission. We also need enemies. Both unite the people behind their leaders. It's not enough to simply promote a civil, peaceful, prosperous and free society. The people have to be united in common causes because it quiets dissent and keeps people from complaining about their taxes. And, if we make enough enemies, we can never scale back our intelligence and "peacekeeping" infrastructures.



________________________________________

Ok. (without being circular here) I throw a baseball in front of me. it traves some 30-40 feet, and then plunks to the ground.

do I need God to mediate all baseballs?

Gravity. no god there. Combustion. no god there. Friction. sounds like physics to me. Fusion. heh. godless i say!

bah. name one thing you can explain better with god, and then show me the evidence.

Is it just me, or is your post full of unanswered question marks? Oh, and you're a pinhead, by the way.

You're also making the assumption here that the carnivore box is some how progressive or positive, which is clearly not the case.

You are making the assumption that mechanized looms were somehow progressive or positive, which was clearly not the case. People lost their livelihoods and even their lives from the mass-displacement in the workforce perpetuated by mechanization. Remember, this was long before minimum wages, social welfare, and broad unionization, and every fewer person working the looms was one fewer person living to see tomorrow.

On slashdot of all places, I'd expect to find a more receptive audience for decrying the demise of the individual in pace with the rise of the godless corporate state.

> What an abomination this is to the name of both God and human life.

Learning to understand and manipulate cells is an abomination?

With that thinking, so is, say, a lifesaving heart bypass, or even using a condom, because using our knowledge to manipulate life is Bad(tm).

> Not only must human life be reduced to such a tiny level

Because life kinda exists at such a tiny level; you'd prefer ignorance? You think it best to ignore reality and go about our lives like good [insert whatever religion you are]?

Way to waste your (God given?) gifts.

> we must also find ways to modify with the very seeds of humanity?

IMO, it's more evil to waste our knowlege and abilities than it is to explore them; would you rather we just let people die needlessly, when the technology exists to help them? Causing death by inaction.. that's paramount to murder (or in the timescales of the life of a species, mass-murder. Oops).

> What's next, a device which can transcend earthly existance and modify the human soul? Are we so vain?

Seeing as the soul is merely a concept in people's minds; a meme, if you will, I don't see this being likely. TBH, if you think we're inherintly "better" than everything else because of some utterly abstract nonsense like a god given soul, you're the vain one. (not to say I don't value human life; I don't need the idea of a human soul to do that when it has intrinsic value)

> I'm horrified by the thought that life can be treated as some sort of vile mechanical process

Why "vile"? What makes you think life is any more than a complex reproducing machine, forged through billions of years of evolution (bet you hate that too)? Why does the idea that the Universe can create complex life like without a plan, or a creator disturb you? We're certainly not well designed.. more a massive kludge.

That doesn't make it any less incredible, or wonderful, unless you're an ignorant fool.

> rather than the sacred and beautiful thing it is.

Knowing how a sunset produces all those wonderful colours doesn't make it any less beautiful. In fact, knowing how such complexity and beauity can arise naturally makes it even more wonderful. As it is with many things.

> I'm all for the curing of diseases

In what way is this any less meddling than cellular level manipulation? Or using a condom? Or trying not to be hit by a bus when you cross the road? Would you rather sit back and die, or become ill, when there's a chance to avert it?

Do you cross the road, or drive with your eyes closed so you don't interfere with life, and God's plan by inadvertantly not mowing someone down, or being mown down yourself? Or do you think our abilities are ok dealing with things like that, but nothing more complex that is, yet, reached within a couple of centuries of rapid development at the very start of the technological era of our species?

> I'm worried that in several years, humanity will be replaced with robotic drones who serve no purpose other than to work and perform

More like freed to do things it's good at, and enjoys. Wasting a human with a nasty repetative job when a machine can do it better is a bit evil, concidering the worth of the human who could be doing better things. As our technology becomes better supportive, this is what will result; people freed to live their lives.

> And we're throwing praise and money into this abomination

Don't get me started about throwing praise and money into a religion that.. no, let's just not.

> Were it not expressly forbidden by the 6th commandmant, I would rather take my life than live in such a horrendously blasphemous society.

You realise, of course, that not everybody wants to follow your religion, or a religion? You, of *course*, respect peoples right to make their own choices and believe in whatever they want to?

Seemingly, you don't; I noticed your use of the word "Godless" in a post about the third world, which I take as something of an insult, seeing as I'm also "Godless"; that doesn't make me respect life any less, nor does it take the wonder out of life.

If you're so narrow minded to think it does, you're obviously not well educated enough to really understand what makes it so wonderful.

(Oh, and guys, I don't think this is a traditional troll, unless you count differing opinions as trolls, which isn't very P.C., now, is it? Maybe he's an idiot with awful opinions, but that doesn't really make him a troll, does it?)

Hmmm... You are trolling and I shouldn't even respond to a mindless sheep like yourself but I feel I have no choice but to ventilate. It seems that you are the one who is godless and un-american. You are a product of a culture you can't explain... You are in a prison you can not see or smell or touch. Yeah, I know, I ripped off morpheus here.

The vast majority, not all, but most people who watch TV, keep up with the NFL, popular sports and the like think they are living in the real world... The truth is, that those people are sadly caught in a vicious cycle... they are brought up not to think and to follow mindlessly.

People talk about how football is SO American and if you don't like baseball, apple pie, chevy, or some popular mindless activity you are unamerican. I would argue, however, that the inverse is true. America was founded by people who were trying to escape the very thing that America has become -- a mindless society. America, when it was young, was a promising land for inventors, scientists, and freethinkers like our own founding fathers - Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson.

It really is disturbing that Americans are becoming more mindless day by day. Succumbing to media, advertising, and hype. Marx said "religion is an opium." Well, I say NFL, and competative sports in general are the opiums of today's society. How many American's know who wrote the declaration of Independence? A survey of today's high school teens showed that only a handfull even knew that it was Thomas Jefferson. However, the same teens knew who won what games and what so and so's batting average was.

And godless you say? You are the one who worships an oversized steroid pumping jock. You are the one who obsesses about a game. A GAME!!!
The world would turn whether they existed or not. I don't watch football and I don't give a damn about them and my life mysteriously continues. The problem with people like you who are trapped in the popular culture is that you can't see past the barrier that society has created for you. The "real" world is not concerned with such trivialities. You can't fathom someone not caring about football and it's truly sad you can't see past that barrrier. You're personal growth will be stunted as a result. I'm not saying don't like football... just realize that it is a fruitless pursuit.

Finally, you have let society define who you are. And since you are so hopelessly trapped in the system you are doing everything in your power to defend it. You are scared of people who don't watch football because deep down inside it bothers you that someone thinks. It bothers you that some guy out there has a productive life without succumbing to the pressures you did to be "normal." There are many more like me who just don't give a rat's ass about NFL, NBA, NHL, or some other time wasting activity. I hope that one day you'll come to grips with your inability to break away from that golden cage you are trapped in.

The first amendment does not allow the mentally deranged person to sharply perceive his mental abnormality but deludes him into thinking his abnormality is a normal difference. If the seriously mentally ill person can function in the society without physically harming himself or others, it is possible for him to convince other like-minded psychotics to follow his psychotic beliefs. By virtue of their psychoses, they are unable to perceive the true psychotic symptoms expressed by the mentally ill person they are following and they are unable to perceive evidence of phychosis in his beliefs. They therefore embrace his expressed delusions as truths.

No, an athiest is someone who DISBELIEVES in a higher power. To be an athiest requires a postive action, some kind of change in mental inertia. Failing to believe is an attribute of an agnostic. Either belief that a higher power does exist or does not exist is a hypothesis. To say I don't know if it exists or not is essentially the lack of a hypothesis. You can't say "I don't know" and "I know its not" and be consistent. As for the meaning of agnostic, regardless of what Mr. Huxley meant when he said it, the etymology of it has nothing to do with morality of claiming knowledge one does not posses--it is merely a factual word meaning "I don't possess knowledge". Athiest, on the other hand, from the modifier 'a' (not) and the greek 'theos' meaning god, means literally 'godless' and practically one who denies the existence of god. To say merely that an athiest doesn't believe is insufficient and inadequate. It is much more apropo to say that an athiest believes there is no god, for such a belief is an affirmative statement on the part of the athiest in question.

And for the record, while you may disagree, I consider myself fairly intelligent and definitely an athiest, and *I* describe myself as actively disbelieving.

If one takes this "rule" and applies it to just about anything involving the Internet, the results become laughable.

For example, say someone in the loathsome and decadent state of New York starts up a pornsite. The material being put on the web is legal, because we all know what horrible and godless people New Yorkers are.

Say a man living in the bastion of morality known as Draper, Utah decides to download images from this site. According to their interpretation of the "bullet guideline," the New York website owner has fired these images into Draper, violating their community standards, and causing the collapse of family values across Utah.

The specifics aren't important. The porn site could be replaced by "hate speech," information about an encryption algorithm, schematics for a device which can be used for illegal purposes, or any other piece of information that somebody, somewhere, felt to be somehow dangerous. Everyone, everywhere would have to abide by the most stringent laws of any state or locality in America.

Apologies in advance, but it's customary: MPAA legal briefs. . . Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of those babies?

Amazing how many people fell for this. Man, you should try alt.religion.kibology for a while.

Other than the blasphemous assumption in the second paragraph, it was pretty good. But, there are Fundamentalist Christians who actually do make those kind of categorical statements about what God would or would not do, without any Scriptural support.

Oh -- one thing. You assumed Europa existed, despite the fact that it's not visible to the naked eye and isn't mentioned in the Bible. A line about how astonomy moved straight from serving Satan through astrology to serving Satan through godless science would have served well.

Steven E. Ehrbar