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Except:
1. Being born of an infected mother.
2. Being a nurse, and having an accident while treating a HIV+ patient.
3. Using a condom that breaks
4. Sleeping with someone who is HIV+ in some third world country (or even first world...) where nobody bothered to explain to you that there was anything wrong with that.
5. Being raped.
6. Falling on or playing with an infected needle left lying around.
7. Sleeping with someone in a long-term trusting relationship/marriage who becomes HIV+ because they are cheating on you.
8. Being in an arranged marriage. I doubt that all men in arranged marriages take AIDS tests. Culturally a lot of these people have absolutely no choice in their sexual relations
One could further argue that in situations where one partner plays on the youth, naivety and trust of the other (consenting) partner in order to have sex without protection, that other partner is not truly at fault. In part, situations like that are caused by the fact that parents and teachers are so up tight and embarrassed about discussing the issues that the issues don't really get discussed.
Many kids in my class at school lost their virginity at about 13. If the school had given sex education (of the "if you have sex, use protection" sort, not "This is how ovaries work") to 13 year olds, their parents would be up in arms shouting that the school was trying to encourage sex among minors.
Even more importantly, given the demographic of AIDS sufferers, is that few schools will ever tell you... "If you have gay sex, use protection". In England I think it is illegal for teachers to say anything which could be construed as encouraging (read "condoning") being gay, so the subject is just avoided.
AIDS sufferers have quite enough of being shunned, since by having the disease they must clearly be a depraved Godless homosexual and a heroin addict as well. You don't have to add to that. And saying that less money should be put into their treatment because their disease is their own fault is at best a debatable position
It makes it so difficult to enter into discourse.
try reading some stuff. - I have "read some stuff". thank you.
Good then you'll be familiar with the issues of censorware blocking out non-depraved material and pages deemed innapropriate because they differ from the opinions of the blocker.
Yeah, I loved the place. My girlfriend and I had a weekend of non-stop sex, porn and drugs. And do you know what? That kind of makes me more qualified to talk about censorship because I've had a taste of a kind of freedom. Sex is fantastic and sharing sex with people other than your partner is great fun too. Be that in bed with them or putting up a web page with your bedroom pictures on or posting the contents of your digital camera to alt.sex.fucking.
I get my political information from more conventional sources.
Like the bible or maybe it's the Koran for you? Shame you've got a closed mind. If not then you would know that fiction is a great source of political ideas. Ever heard of George Orwell? no maybe not because as a bible type you should know that other books are a sin and that the bible is the only source of knowledge you will ever need.
Keep off the shellfish
oh BTW 1.Thou Shalt Not Kill
Don't forget it doesn't discriminate between humans and other species so get that Chicken McNugett out of your mouth.
Does anyone know if the ban on Rock and Roll has been lifted yet
Stuck. When we subscribe to the anti-theistic philosophical core provided by evolution--which provides us with a necessarily amoral outlook--we are stuck without hope. In the tech breakthroughs we note the steady buzzing continual drone of supposed hope, while the outcome leads inevitably to dystopia--the only thing we can imagine in a godless world. Could it be that there are other solutions? Could it be that Genesis 11:5-6 is true? That a race morally warped from the fall, were it to be left unhelped, would only ultimately destroy itself? Could it be that at the end of the pitiful onward-gushing abyss of antitheism there is nothing but a dark wall at the end of a hallway of nothingness? There is another road, in which God intervenes, wraps up the sin problem once and for all, leaves us with our freedom of choice intact, and we all go on marching off to grow and learn more. Don't think that religion as commonly conceived necessarily means empty-minded harp-playing on clouds for eternity. A robot is not made in God's image, and it has no where to go. We are made in God's image, but born broken, which situation heaven intends not to leave us in. How fascinating it is to watch the light at the end of the antitheistic tunnel looking more and more like an onrushing locomotive. Whether we see the dark wall or the headlight of doom, either end is the wrong one. Hope is informed. Hope is sustained. Hope is apocalyptic. Hope is theistic. Dystopia is anthropocentric. What a choice.
As you have seen, it was a Canadian company that wished to violated the rights of our respected Motion Picture Association. They attempted to deal a death blow to moving pictures by setting up an underground Canadian internet piracy ring. This simply cannot be tolerated. As Mr. Katz has pointed out in his piece, the best solution we have to save our good, American movies is to invade and destroy the godless savages up north. A few smahed igloos oughta teach them not to mess with a real country, or our movies.
2. The Governor of said state signs the bill into law, taking a brave stand in the fight against the moral chaos of the WWW.
3. The law gets struck down in court, because it just doesn't work and restricts other information.
4. The legislators and governor shrug their shoulders and say they tried their best, but the godless ACLU and other legal weasals subverted their best efforts to protect the American family.
Just another sorry episode in the saga of American politics. There's simply nothing to deter these morons from enacting an obviously ineffective and unconstitutional law. Instead, the incentive is to push ahead and try SOMETHING, just to look like they're on the job.
HOLY WAR NOW
by Tony Alamo
Recently, Randall Terry, executive director of Operation Rescue, suggested that all good Christians unite under God's holy banner and secede from the United States of America. The Bible foretells this great division in Revelations. The Apostle Paul writes in II Corinthians 6:14-15, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" Is there a better description of the place of Christianity in America today?
Most good Christians know in their hearts that America was founded by fundamentalist Christians seeking a place where they could establish a holy land based on the Ten Commandments and other Biblical laws. Today, nothing could be further from the truth. Today, the sinister Catholic Bill Clinton rules our country with a Satanic fist, linked with the sodomites, feminists, Vatican, Process Church of the Final Judgment (PCFJ, or simply Process), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Cult Awareness Network (CAN), Bureau of alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the Jewish-controlled media, the Mafia-run, proto-legal gambling, drug and prostitution rings, the Jesuit cult eradication syndicate of anti-Christian propaganda infiltration, and the Son of SAM/Satanic Cathedral of Greater New York. The Vatican/Jesuit/Satanic one-world government (or "New World Order") has a factory or Process training ground for pseudo-Christian so-called cults which serve the purpose of tarnishing Christianity in the public eye. This factory uses many tools, including child abuse, ritual torture, media insemination, untruth propagation and total immolation to produce fanatic baby-eating cult psychopaths like David Koresh and Charles Manson. The Branch Davidians weren't harming anybody -- yet (for information on the government's long-term plan for Koresh, see my pamphlet "Re-Crucifying Christ in Waco, Texas," published in June, 1973, twenty years before the actual event occurred!! Praise Jesus). The ATF moved swiftly on Koresh and his brainiacs, feeding lies to the Jewish media about slavery, slave labor camps, child abuse, pet abuse, spouse abuse, drug abuse, and tax evasion, which I am not guilty of. Of course the media printed these lies and the Vatican spread them to every filthy corner of this Godless, secular humanist world doomed to hell, by God's mighty unrelenting flaming fist.
Some of the more astute and devout Christians may have noticed the escalating cataclysms of the past year. The riots in Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York and other major urban dens of sin; the floods in America's heartlands; and the Hellish heat all over America are all Biblical signs of God's coming Judgment -- veritable plagues sent upon modern-day America as punishment for baby killings, rampant sodomy, condom distribution in public schools and general immorality. If God was a federal judge, he would throw the Book (the Bible) at humanity the defendant! Repent NOW and avoid risking God's righteous wrath!
In Revelations, God tells us that his flaming sword of nuclear judgment will strike humanity not once, not twice, but three times before Armageddon. The human pain and suffering will be unbearable and tragic. Only 144,000 Christians will survive the real Holocaust, and these will be the Righteous Few who have accepted God's One True Sacred Holy Spoken Word. See the end of this pamphlet for details.
The most frightening aspect of the End Times are the frequent and visible manifestations of Satan. The recent controversy over Pepsi's "One World Government" advertisements has prompted a global Christian boycott of Pepsico and its sister companies IBM, GE, Hershey's and Time/Warner due to the unbelievable overt Satanic symbolism and messages of the ads. Doesn't Revelations warn us about the "new world order" and the Whore of Babylon?
The three teenagers who murdered those boys in Arkansas were inadvertent agents of the Jesuit-Catholic-Process conspiracy. They were enticed and deceived into crime by Steve McNeill of Memphis, who gave them their satanic rock music, LSD and marijuana, the sin corporations whose ultimate interest lies in the destruction of old-fashioned American Christianity. Are you going to sit back and let this happen?
Sharon Tate paid for her dabbling in satanic rituals with her life. Satan's tax agents, the IRS, sent the Process assassin Charles Manson to doublecross Tate in cold-blooded murder. Her husband Roman Polanski, an admitted pervert and pedophile, was a disgruntled pagan and had planned to expose the IRS and CAN in a new film produced by Dino de Laurentiis and Pepsico. When Pepsi found out about the anti-CAN plot of the film, they contacted the Satanic Assassins Movement (SAM), who had just kidnapped and brainwashed a new killer named David Berkowitz (the Son of SAM). SAM is based on the pagan cult of Hassan i Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, who could, like modern Satanists, send faceless, nameless, heartless, godless assassins to any corner of the globe to do Belial's work. SAM contacted PCFJ, who dispatched Charles Manson, a hypnotic hippie and drug-crazed murderer, to kill Polanski and Tate before the IRS and CAN could be exposed.
Of course, Polanski's film was never made, since he now resides in Europe with homosexuals and Nazis. And until now, nobody has been made aware of the devil's conspiracy headed by the Pope, the IRS and the President of the United States. All three are preparing to reveal to the world their plan for registering all Christian citizens in a vast "Book of Names" -- one copy for the White House, one copy for the Vatican, one copy for the IRS and one copy for CAN! I, Tony Alamo, have taken it upon myself to reveal this dastardly plan and to invite all Christians to rise up and destroy the wicked!!
That's right. I want all good, true Christians to join me in spiritual sedition. We must separate ourselves in the eyes of God from the evil that has apparently taken over our once proud nation. Jesus Himself said, "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Matthew 4:10). We shall only serve the Lord our God in Heaven, Amen, and let our mighty holy war begin.
You might ask yourself, "How do I participate in this righteous combat?" Begin by organizing your Christian community. Help us fight the Satanists by joining in the boycott against Pepsi and its sister companies. Form vigilante prayer groups. Help Operation Rescue shut down abortion clinics. Patronize only Christian establishments and businesses. Do not encourage the sodomites and satanists. Do not buy L. Ron Hubbard's books. Spare the rod and spoil the child. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Be political, not polite. Fight the power. Buck the devil.
Avoid hell's everlasting torments by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Overlord, your King, your Master, your one and only Dominator, your Disciplinarian, your Patriarch and your Savior. Receive His free gift of eternal life in heaven's undescribably beautiful paradise. Order now and you'll also receive two Blessings and more Tony Alamo pamphlets! "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 14:12). There is no possible other way in the entire universe for you to receive salvation but through Jesus. Unite your spirit to God through Christ by the Holy Spirit. To accomplish this miracle of life eternal, send no money now. Say this prayer:
Now that you are saved and forgiven of your sins, raise your hands and praise the Lord very loudly so everybody can hear.
Tony Alamo
World Pastor, Holy Alamo Christian Church
THIS LITERATURE CARRIES THE ONLY PLAN OF SALVATION. DO NOT THROW IT AWAY; PASS IT ON TO ANOTHER.
> Besides, "Censorware allows your children to see porn!" is a much catchier headline then "Censorware keeps
your children from seeing 'The offspring'". It'll make the evening news much more often.
I've quoted it here because to me, this is all about propagability of memes. Some people evaluate memes based on truth values, but most don't. Truth is not a predictor of propagability of memes, and in order to win this battle, we need memes that can propagate as well among the fundie crowd as they do among the Slashdot crowd. .
Let's consider the memeset of our "enemy" here, and that Offspring lyric that got posted. Our enemy probably knows "The Offspring" as "that band that sings about beating people up and being a rowdy teenager". Blocking Offspring isn't a bug to these people, it's an accidental feature.
Those Offspring lyrics - put yourself in the brain of a stereotypical fundie and read the lyrics: "When will the world listen to reason / I have a feeling it'll be a long time / When will the truth come into season / I have a feeling it'll be a long time.."
Now, since you're a fundie, and you know that Offspring isn't "Christian Rock", you can only assume that they're not talking about "the world waking up to the realization that Christ is the One True Savior". In fact, you probably suspect that they're trying to get your kids to "wake up" and snap out of their fundie-raised upbringing. What we /.ers think of as "think for yourself" is - in the hardcore fundie mentality, "the sin of pride", a rebellion against God's divine authority that puts man at the center of their universe, not God - oh, the horror!
Do I agree with that logic? Not on your life. But $10 worth of hot grits down Jerry Falwell's pants says that the people who want blocking software do. And THEY'RE the ones propagating the memes right now, which is why we're losing this war.
We need to stop pretending that our opposition cares about the First Amendment. We know damn well they don't. Stop pretending that our audience cares about the First Amendment. They're too ignorant to care about things when the meme of "saving the chiiilllldrun is worthwhile at any cost" shows up. From a memetic warfare standpoint, the logical alternative is to take the battle to a level the sheeple can understand, and that means to start scaring them into submission the same way our opponents have been doing, and that means a memeset that propagates among fundies.
An audience of people who stand up and say "I used your filtering software last year and read about donkeys fucking little girls! You said you made your filters better, but I can still see that goddamn link!" is an audience ready to get my proposed meme:
Filterware isn't about protecting the children. It's a scam that can never work. The companies that write it and sell it are lying to you.
Unlike "You're blocking good sites too", where our idea of "good" is just as bad as pr0n to our enemies, this is a useful meme.
Consider: It appeals on the gut level - to paranoia, by accusing "big business" of running a scam on "the little guy", and describes a world in which Godless Amoral Corporations are trying to pull the wool over Your Preshus Chilldrun's eyes by hawking snake oil that can never work. They're not really for Jesus, they're just trying to make a buck in His name. (The fact that this is true isn't relevant -- it's that it's easily believed to be true that counts.)
More importantly - this meme gives its holder a sense of superiority. "I know censorware doesn't work. I know it's a crock. I know something other people don't know, which makes me better than other people!".
Finally - it doesn't conflict with their existing memeset. Our whining about the First Amendment makes us feel superior, because most of us realize that there are principles at stake beyond religious bickering. But it conflicts directly with the "God Uber Alles" meme that so heavily infects the fundie set. To these people, a theocracy is a Good Thing, and the First Amendment is a threat. But even the most diehard theocrat can see that "Being a Sucker" is a bad thing.
To summarize -- if you wanna do memetic warfare, pick memes that are easily reproduced. Pick memes that make their holders happy by reinforcing their propagators' self-esteem. And make sure you pick a meme that doesn't require modification to the existing memes held by your target audience.
It's what they've done to us so successfully with "We're for God, the children, and apple pie. They're for porn and using the first amendment as a lame excuse." When we whine about the First Amendment - it's taken for whining, because our argument says "there are things more important than your religious beliefs" - our meme conflicts with theirs and gets thrown out.
My proposed "You're being sold snake oil. Don't be a sucker" meme is every bit as true as our arguement about the First Amendment, but unlike the constitutional argument, it doesn't conflict with their existing complex of religious memes. You can go on thumping the bible and beatin' up faggutz and lezzbein' femminizt radikulz or whatever the hell else it is that hardcore fundies get off on - but you can do it without censorware.
Because You're Not A Sucker. And Censorware is for Suckers. Because it doesn't work. Because it never will work. And because it's all a scam being run by people who are invoking the name of God to make a quick buck. May they burn in hell, Amen.
Here's an idea, why doesn't someone put up an explicitly illustrated bible web page, and wait unitl it gets blocked by the censorware. Then you can make then out to be godless commies, or something.
Here's a few freebies, you'll have to find the pics, though:
How beautiful your sandaled feet, O prince's daughter! Your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of a craftsman's hands.
2
Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies.
3
Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
4
Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus.
5
Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel. Your hair is like royal tapestry; the king is held captive by its tresses.
6
How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights!
7
Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
8
I said, "I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit." May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples,
9
and your mouth like the best wine. May the wine go straight to my lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth. [1]
10
I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.
and for the pervs out there:
Judges 19:24-29 "Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light. And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place. And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel."
Thanks mostly to the XXX-rated Bible.
George
I'm a godless heathen and I still thought it was a pretty sick place to get married. This is something that you will (hopefully) only do once in your entire life. Twenty years from now I wouldn't want to look back and reminesce fondly over how the best man took a rocket up the arse as he was delivering his speach. Or talk to my grandchildren about how grandma's bloody severed head flew across the room instead of a bouquet.
The science of astronomy, which was invented decades ago by the liberals to discredit the Bible, has always been ludicrous. But it just keeps getting more and more ludicrous. And friends, it has gotten to the point where we must all stand up and announce that we will not take it any more. NASA has gone too far this time, and they must be held accountable. It's bad enough that they invent "galaxies" and "nebulae" to trick our children into believing the universe is older than 6,000 years. It's bad enough that they attempt to explain the origin of the universe as a "big bang" that is inconsistent with Scripture.
.. oh no, they won't be allowed to. We will prevail. At the end of the day, we will be victorious, and the supporters of NASA and Linux will be at our feet, begging for mercy that we do not have.
Friends, this time NASA has aligned itself with Linux, and the godless socialists that promote it. This is not acceptable. NASA's lavish expenditures during the "moon race" were acceptable; we never actually went to the moon, of course, but at least the bulk of the money went to the American corporations that were helping to produce the whole "space race" charade. That money ended up in the pockets of the corporate chairmen, and according to the laws laid down by the godly Ronald Reagan, the money "trickled down" to the poor people and Negroes.
But this time NASA has gone too far. Linux? Christ Almighty! These people are all socialists. Things have taken a turn for the worse when government agencies can support socialism without even attempting to hide it. We need to elect leaders that will stand up for Christ and attack socialism and communism at their very roots. But where are these leaders? Are they anywhere to be found? No, friends, no! Not in any recent election year has there been a candidate worth voting for. Not since the 1984 presidential election where the honorable Ronald Reagan properly defeated the hellbound liberal Walter Mondale.
This year's presidential race is no better. When you've got rabid liberals like Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes supposedly representing "conservatives", something is very, very wrong. Sure, these people try to pretend that they're conservatives, but when it comes down to core conservative issues such as the death penalty for homosexuals or the criminalization of Catholicism, they are strangely silent. Why is that, Alan? Why is that, Gary? It is because they are liberals in sheep's clothing, that's why.
No more, friends. No more. It is time that we stood against NASA and the type of rampant socialism that it promotes. Linux, and its users, must be imprisoned. They seek to destroy capitalism at its very roots. They won't be allowed to, friends
Er... wasn't germany under Hitler still a Xian country? Didn't this make it a lot easier to justify exterminating Jews. Sort of like my best friend, who happens to be Jewish... this December, somebody left a note on his door reading "Why don't you Godless people put up some Christmas lights?"
It seems reasonable to me, based on if nothing else gut feeling, that both the material and spiritual sides of "reality" should be based on the same set of principles... that the laws of thermodynamics, relativity, etc. should be just as applicable to the actions of the mind and spirit as to the actions of celestial bodies... Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle applies equally to electrons and Tarot cards. There should exist a discoverable system of equations, based on observable laws, that governs reincarnation or heaven or hell, mysticism, mythology, or what have you. The idea that God created a universe of startling complexity, beauty, and subtlety yet sits on a throne to toss goats and sheep to the left and right at some arbitrary time t makes no sense. A Taoist personally, I would suggest that the observable pattern of the universe is not just an expression of the Will of God, but is indeed God itself.
In response to Amphigory's first statement, I disagree with the suggestion that Eastern religions are "mostly godless"... Hinduism, Tantric Buddhism, Shintoism, and _religious_ Taoism (tao chiao as opposed to tao chia) have pantheons so large you have to express them in scientific notation. however, I do heartily agree with his idea that reason and religion are not mustually exclusive, but rather supportive, and that the laws of physics are evidence for the existence of God, not against.
Then I studied physics. The strongest evidence Iknow for God is the nature of the physical universe. It's not rational evidence: it's emotional, because what is important about the order is not it's existence, but its beauty and (most of all) elegance. I found (and find) the cycles of increasingly useful approximations (Aristotle to Newton, Newton to Einstein, Einstein to Quantum) awesome to behold. And cannot conceive how they could be in the abscense of a creating will.
Ultimately, the existence of will is simpler than physics. As such, if there is one thing uncreated, it seems to me that it must be a will, not the myriad laws of physics, in all their elegant complexit.
So, through this rather tortuous and illogical path, I came to believe in a personal God. How I came to believe that Jesus personified him is another story. The point is that my religion does not stand in opposition to my knowledge of physics (I majored in Physics as an undergrad), but is supported by it. I think the whole "reason vs. religion" debate is nothing but a straw man, just waiting for wide-spread good sense to knock it down.
--
"Yes, Commissioner? I think I've found the source of these malicious DoS attacks... have you ever heard of Rob Malda?"
"Yes, the infamous Commander of Tacos! We know all about him... he and his evil gang, the Slashdotters, have terrorized web-sites throughout the land with their awesome distributed DoS capabilities. A link goes up on the main page -- and boom! The site is impossible to contact within as little as five minutes! Why, with that kind of power, and his evil mutant slave Hemos, he's -"
"Sir?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"Hemos is a human, sir."
"I'll be damned if I'm tricked into believing that again, mister! As I was saying, with that kind of power, (and an evil mutant slave *AHEM*), this Commander of Tacos is unstoppable!"
"Yes, sir, I once thought that myself. But he has a weakness -- his code."
"What?!"
"You heard my correctly sir. That Slash code. It's available freely to all now, right there on Slashdot. You can pass it on to the crack [smoking] analysts at the NSA, and --
"And we'll know just how he does it, and how to stop him! By gar, Drew, you're right! How an I ever pay you back?"
"Just buy CDs from Walnut Creek and support FreeBSD, sir. FreeBSD is the OS of true Americans. Slashdot and its evil ways are the product of the godless socialist Fins and their 'Linux'."
"Damned straight! I'll get right on it! [trailing off] Jensen! Preorder 500 copies of FreeBSD 4.0 from Walnut Creek, stat!"
[drew hangs up] "*Sigh* Yet another mystery solved by the powers of a BSD 4.4 lite OS.
be sure to tune in next week, when Drew has Linus deported for serial buggery!
Instead, as the old saying goes, fight fire with fire. Instead of coming off as slightly cowed by their self-righteous indignation, start ripping into 'em using their own tactics! Insinuate that it's only the lousy parents that can't supervise their kids; they probably let that infernal idiot-box television raise their kids, too! See, they're too wrapped up in their own in their own lives to care about their kids. Y'know, after all, that only kids of poor moral fiber caused by lack of love from their parents go looking for porn. Be sure to drop hints that only Godless Commie pinkos don't care about the First Amendment, too. Invoke the specters of Stalin and Mao, if needed. And never, ever listen to their arguments and try to counter them. That's only a sign of weakness. Ignore their arguments as the worthless waste of breath that they are, and plow ahead with your own agenda.
Once you put the pro-filtering side on the defensive and make their argument look as weak as it really is, only then will you start to change a lot of people's minds.
(The worst part about this message is that I'm less than half joking.)
I could refer any of you who bring up religion to the treatise "Magic without Tears" by Aleister Crowley- early on he defines the universe and the concept that the answer to the riddle is 0 = 2. The belief that some "god" created the universe is obviously a false one, as something would have to have brought about the existance of god as well- and as we all know, to question god is Blasphemy, which covers everyone's tracks and gets them out of explaining what is in fact a convenient delusion.
Christians in general- not saying that anyone here represents the general religious community- are narrowminded in their steadfast belief in this concept. Not only that, but most chrisitan sects are evangelical in nature, with missionaries hell-bent on screwing up so-called "godless" cultures that were just fine before their close-minded self-centered evangelicism intervened.
I haven't read much Katz, but I can see where he's coming from if he's alleged to rail on religion- anyone who can't accept "it just IS. Live with it." as an excuse would be foolish to accept the concept of One God creating the universe. Likewise, it is foolish people that have a habit of putting the stomp on geeks, setting trends, wearing suits, and being generally "pop culture" - the people we have to clean up after and kindly inform that the CDROM drive is "NOT a drink tray, thank you" are the ones who refuse to question "why" and go for the god thing in the first place. Willing ignorance.
Who in their right mind would advocate this? I'll side with Katz in this argument, naturally [assuming these allagations are correct].
While I do not suppose to get in the way of anyone's belief systems, I do wish to potentially nullify the "do YOU believe in god?" and "you're going to hell" and "ATHEIST!" arguments:
In order to "go to hell", one must "believe" in a devil- and god. Since I recognize the faallacy of the mythos- it's your lie, tell it any way you want.
In order to be an Atheist, one must believe in no "spuernatural" or "supernormal" [sic] systems. These concepts are patently obvious, from the ground up- karma, "coincidence", "luck"... all intangible forces that follow abstracted science. There is more to Reality than humanity-- and there is no God but man [you ARE the center of your own universe, no? Where does it go when you blink? ] You define reality on your own terms based from your own experience.
Geeks like to figure things out- it would seem that a "religious" geek has missed one of the critical insites of the underlying scientific nature of reality. I gather that Katz has no appreciation for religion- an outdated, hopelessly confused system that has no bearing but spiritual oppression.
He can lamb-baste it all he wants: I'm behind him a hundred percent.
I have to support SurfWatch's blocking of the Chris Odonnell fan page on general principles, man.
.. you be Robin!" the children enthusiastically proclaim.
Truer words were never spoken. Friends, it warms my heart to see that the forces of Common Sense are represented on Slashdot. Just a few scant years ago, it would have been socially unacceptable to link to such utter liberal trash on a publicly-accessible Web page. But what do we have today? Uberliberal Jamie McCarthy flagrantly advertises O'Donnell's shrine to hedonism, liberalism, and multiculturalism as if it were to a decent web site, such as the homepage of the Republican Party.
O'Donnell's transgressions against decent people run far and wide. They are also well-documented, thanks to Hollywood's predatory distribution tactics. His role in the film Scent of a Woman is well-known. It is also known that the letters in the title Scent of a Woman can be re-arranged to spell Cowmen of Satan, which is a clear reference to the widespread occult practices of the Old West. And then there is O'Donnell's portrayal of Ernest Hemingway, who was openly socialist, in the film In Love and War! Criminitly! How can people possibly stand for this?
And let us not forget O'Donnell's most famous role -- that of the Dark Knights's junior partner Robin in the damnable Batman films. These sick films, with their fetishistic black rubber costumes and film noir settings, are nothing more than sacrifices at the altar of sexual deviance. They have caused more than a few third graders to engage in sadomasochistic role-playing on the monkeybars, friends. "I'll be Batman
Robin, indeed! O'Donnell is "robin" our children of their innocence! He is at least partially saved by his role in the film School Ties, where he stands up for tradition and honor by opposing the presence of a non-traditional student in a prestigious private school. But this is not enough, friends. If Chris O'Donnell thinks that he has paid his debt to society by participating in one small honorable role, he is wrong. He is just beginning to repay his debts.
Thank you for your time.
The USA isn't frightened of invasion by the Godless Reds anymore (they can hardly kick ass in a country still barely out of the stone age).
While Russians still haven't managed to make such advanced things as unprofitable companies with stock going up for years, they had companies' email addresses on ads long before US started mentioning anything Internet-related (even before WWW became mainstream, so there weren't URLs to mention). So even though economy is in ruins, "stone age" is definitely something from American propaganda.
The USA isn't frightened of invasion by the Godless Reds anymore (they can hardly kick ass in a country still barely out of the stone age). But they are scared silly that some boozy fool in the president's office will push the Big Red Button in a fit of pique. Okay so only one in ten nukes makes it to the USA without sputtering out, diverting to Azerbaijan, or blowing up halfway. But that is still a lot of nukes and some serious shit going down. So, the USA is going to tread softly around Russia, right up until those same nukes have rusted into radioactive junk piles.
As a senior in college with a life sciences background I'd like to provide a little info on the current state of evolutionary theory. No, it's not possible to demonstrate macro-evolution of humans in a lab environment using humans. (obviously, to the delight of creationsists). And yes, there are some differences between micro and macro evolution. Since there seems to be a case of too few words chasing too few facts, I'd like to try and provide a breif outline of the state of evolutionary theory, why it exists, and how it is incomplete.
It's important to review the evidence occasionaly. Just because most science textbooks try to make an 'argument from authority' (which I hate) dosen't mean that anyone who argues is automaticaly an authority. I've tried to outline the scientific standpoint here as clearly as possible without getting bogged down in jargon. There are, of course, some supporting arguments not listed.
For starters; Any good scientific theory is predictive. It's possible to justify absolutly anything in the world after the fact. You can say, for instance, that objects fall to the floor because the sky is pushing them away, but once you traveled out into space, you'd have to change your explanation. A good theory predicts the results of an experiment before the experiment is performed. Darwinian evolution suggested that each individual had a fixed hereditary code which can't be changed by the environment as Lemark and later lysenko suggested. This was confirmed by the discovery of DNA, which is such a code.
Darwinian evolution also suggests that animals thought to be decended from one another would demonstrate similarities in their genetic code. Analysis of genetic phenomenon such as single nucleotide polymorphisms corroborate this. So the theory of Darwinian evolution did manage to predict the scientific framework under which future discoveries would fall, beating out competing scientific theories. It is predictive, in that sense.
Unfortunatly, the theory of evolution could be more predictive than it is
Black moths can suddenly come to dominate a population over the course of a few decades because the gene that allows it already existed as a recessive mutation in the population. This is not the same as creating a new and complex gene from scratch.
While you can't see humans evolving in the laboratory, bacteria and viruses are a different story. Since some bacteria can conjugate (bacteria sex) this should be a decent demonstration that new genes can evolve.
Some bacteria, if memory serves, can experience a few hundered thousand years worth of human evolution over a few decades real time.
Of course, there are still problems with the theory of evolution. While we can predict that animals will evolve, but it's still an open question as to just what they're going to evolve into or when, or even what causes them to change. Do they change suddenly with stable periods in between or do they change slowly and gradualy?
Paul Ewald recently published a book entitled 'the evolution of infectious diseases' which pointed out certain conditions under which diseases would become more virulent (harmful to their host). Cases involved frequent lateral bloodborne transmission or trasmission through another fluid medium (like diarrhea(sp?) contaminating the water supply) and other cases. This argued against Burnette and White's hypothesis, based on airborne pathogens, that diseases evolve to harmlessness since hosts become resistant and diseases don't want to 'kill the hand that feeds them'. Likewise, David Raup published "Extinction" which argued that species don't become extinct due to competition, but because they encounter a sudden stress that they hadn't evolved to handle. Without getting too boring or technical, I hope this provides some insight into the current state of evolutionary theory, why it's the most predictive theory to date, and how it needs to be improved. It's not that scientists are looking for a godless cause for the creation of life. It's just that bibicaly based creationism has proven to be very non-predictive.