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OK, I'll bite.

Although experts may disagree, and there is the occasional fraud or corperate shill in the science community, at least they are more likely to use the scientific method and choose facts over opinions.

Imho, while user-generated content may, in some cases, be more accurate or up-to-date, it is all to easy to encounter this situation.

Scientist: The Earth is round.
DragonBallZFan: It looks flat to me.
AnnCoulter: The Earth is flat, you godless, anti-American, terrorist-supporting liberals! And you know why? Science said it's not flat, and science is always wrong because it conflicts with the Bible!
QB253X2: Get a year's supply of Viagra for just $14.95 at htttp://www.stealyouridentity.info

I'm not sure why people like to trot out the 6,000 year old theory every time someone mentions the age of the Universe. Perhaps it is because they're seeking an opportunity to tar the faiths of the world with the brush of ignorance. [mumble mumble] ignorance of religion [mumble mumble] all believers [mumble mumble] getting [mumble] old [mumble] pedantic.

I'm just trying to point out that anyone who thinks that all artists can be this successful, need to realize that this is unlikely to be duplicated, based on purely economic considerations.

Each Limited Edition is numbered and personally signed by Trent Reznor. Strictly Limited to 2500 pieces. Limit one per customer.

They put a far more thought into the principles upon which they wanted found the nation when they wrote the Constitution.

They kinda decided that appealing to God wasn't such a bright idea.

Which kinda explains why the Constitution is in fact a "Godless document" founding an explicitly secular government.

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So you're telling me that the number of people killed by Christians during the Crusades is not significant?

More blood has been shed in the name of forcing one's views on others over the course of history than any plague, famine or natural disaster. Theistic religions are not the only guilty parties in this regard, but their hands are still quite bloody. One reason that "godless" regimes such as the Third Reich and Communist nations such as the USSR and China attempted to eradicate religion was the "undue influence" religion had on the actions of the populace. Conversely, we have the conflict in the Middle East not only between Muslims and Jews, but between various Muslim sects. Never mind the fact that on the one hand people in the US (where I was born and raised, and still reside) who think a religious government in Iraq would be bad but have a President of the United States who is not a devout Christian would be a harbinger of the end of the world. As long as there is intolerance of any kind, or a desire to push one's views as more "right" than someone else's, there will be conflict and there will be bloodshed.

And under copyright law (which governs things like movies), re-selling a derivative work (such as a clean edit) without explicit permission of the copyright holder is illegal. You have no "right" to purchase any form of a movie than those which are sold by the copyright holder or by someone who has been given explicit permission to sell their particular version of the movie. If you knowingly purchase a movie that has been edited and resold in violation of copyright law because you do not wish to see material that offends you, you are a thief (for abetting someone else's efforts to steal the original copyright holder's IP) and a hypocrite (for rationalizing that theft in the name of your beliefs). That ANYONE would be offended by the raw display of love that is made more urgent by the very real possibility that one might die in the near future to the point that they could not watch that scene, and yet not be offended by the even more graphic representation of death, bloodshed and human suffering that dominates the rest of the movie is positively gut wrenching. It is indicative of a society that has lost all sense of proportion, along with its soul.

People much wiser than I am said, "I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. - George Carlin

Please.

Religions were behaving in a radical manner this before atheism was common in the West. Now they just have a scapegoat - people who are rational (or in religion-speak, "godless").

Well, four days after the fact may be a little late to point this out, but your statement is false. It just so happens that I have a Quran/Koran. Convenient, No? I checked. It doesn't say that. Or anything close to that. Next time, try reading the book before you quote it. And just to clarify, I am a Godless Infidel. (AKA: !Muslim)

You forget, the vast majority of slashdotters are godless people who don't want thinking minds - they only want agreement with their personal atheism.

They will be like me, punk kids with big ideas in some godless bureaucracy, hacking away into the night on any computer available, moving stuff between home and work work and home. Not realizing the big bad wolf wants to eat up your ideas and 'monetize' or 'propertize' or 'utilize' or god knows what else. Anything but actually serve your customers/the public, which is what you were probably interested in.

Ok, if even one young punk kid reads this and goes about their business in a little wiser fashion, it will be worth it.

Ad 1., The attacker was a foreigner of a non-allied country. He attacked the economy of the USA. If the judge rules for him, then the judge is guilty of capital treason and should be promptly arrested, then tried in court martial.

Air Force Cyber Command (P) lead Major General William Lord and national spy boss Michael McConnell have recently expressed grave concern for the info-security of Wall Street, they think a competent cyber attack against US financial institutions can cause more economic harm that Sep 11th did. If this ukranian (who is quite possibly not an ukranian, but a russian living in ukraina, the country is very much ethnically divided) .. if this guy is let run with the money, this is a clear sign that USA is fair game for all slavic hackers. Think with your wallet oh fellow yankee and say his cannot happen.

Ad 2., Therefore the SEC should get CIA or DHS to help them claim executive privilege, so that Bush Jr. government can trample upon the judicary's decision. It would be easy to claim this Dorozhenko or whatnot guy is in fact an FSB agent and the FISA would rubber-stamp the asset freeze. Then render the guy off ukranian sidewalk and have him turn up at Gitmo, not to be released until he tells every bit he knows about electronic banking security and its shortcomings in the USA. Use the info to strenghten systems. If non-cooperative, let the shark have a good dinner.

God bless America and please stop whining about the rights of godless communists turned crooks!

You're on the right track, but while we're in there splicing genes, let's make them amphibious and cross them with bears. Then they can be Mutated Godless Killing Machines with Frickin' Laser Beams on their heads.

I'll grant you the USSR was fundamentally atheist, but the Nazis certainly were not. Hitler's speeches were littered with references to God and the Bible. Hell, the Nazis went around parading those horrible anti-Semitic statements by Martin Luther (a good German in their books). Nazi Germany may not have met some standard of being a good Christian country, but it was overwhelmingly Christian, and whether or not Hitler believed in Christianity, he and his fellow thugs used Christian imagery and language with incredible frequency, so calling Nazi Germany "godless" is nothing more than cheap historical revisionism.

Live with it, the Holocaust was perpetrated and carried out by Christians.

For those who suggest religion is the greatest scourge to ever inflict mankind, perhaps we need to take you back just one century for some proper perspective? The two most maniacal and genocidal regimes of all the 20th century were the Nazis and the Soviet Empire of Lenin and Stalin - both of which were completely GODLESS regimes! So you only have to go back one century to realize how bunk it is when people try to lay all the problems of history at the doorstep of religion.

Regarding the insanity of Islam, Christians should check themselves if they start getting all high and mighty about how warped Islam is as a religion. You go back through the ages and it was many a time when burning witches and inquisitions and forcing the natives to subscribe were the norm for Christianity. If you're a Christian, it's just good for you to keep that perspective, for surely we do live in a time where it's the Muslim faith that's infected with an insanity that pervades the most radical fundamentals, but there have been many times when it was Christianity which had a corner on that insanity, so every time you see one of those Muslim idiots blowing themselves up and slaughtering innocent people, don't go thinking it makes you a believer in a superior faith.

On the other hand, a specifically religious regime may be no better. Modern theocracies don't often have a diverse enough population to show us what kind of atrocities might result -- perhaps Sudan is a good indication though. That's not to say all religious regimes would do this any more than all godless regimes would imitate the atrocities of the Stalin era. But it's no guarantee of safety. A Constitutional policy of tolerance comes much closer. We need to guard very carefully against any erosion of it.

It probably isn't any better. But in America, it can't happen. The courts will stop it first because we have this thing called the constitution and the first amendment. I think if anything, the worst you have to fear is someone in power using religion to justify some action like going to war. This has typically been where religions where in their worst throughout history but the religion falsely gets the blame for the actions people justify with religion. It is the people generally not the religion do it. And I said generally because there are some exceptions years ago.

Again, it's not necessarily what he's actually going to be able to do, although if as president (unlikely now) he ever gets a Congress as compliant as the one Bush had to work with for 6 years the sky's the limit. That was frankly disastrous. I suggest you give John Dean's books a read if you don't yet appreciate just how disastrous it was. To use your metaphor, Bush did "walk through walls" in several areas, although the way had been well-prepared for him. A theocratic political disaster is no more savory than one that's power-hungry for merely power's sake.

Well, there are some problems when the congress has to appease the president and there was a lot of problems. The biggest one was the attacks opponents were hurling at the president. Standing up to him would weaken and probable make those attack more effective. In fact, there are more problems with the 6 years of controlling the congress and executive branches of government the we can discuss right here. I would say the biggest impact in shaping the issues is that Bush isn't a conservative, he was a middle man who originally ran as being so far to the middle, he was a uniter not a divider. But a lot of backbone in the congress was pulled out and tossed over a hill when the constant barrage of attacks came in. But even with all the Bush has done while in office, nothing negetive as in illegal or against the constitution has been aided by the specifics of republican control of the congress. The idea of Huckabee or anyone else turning the government from a republic to a theocracy is ridiculous at best and fear mongering at w

Well, that's clever reasoning but in this case you know it isn't true. "Right-to-life" is a codeword for anti-abortion. If the phrase really meant what it said it would suggest opposition to the death penalty as well, but the "Christian right" tends to support it. They believe life begins at conception because they do think God said so.

You really need to look up what Huckabee's been saying in these matters. It's hardly limited to that one speech to that one group. He's been running on his religion, and asking his co-religionists to vote for him for that reason. He's free to do so of course, but I think anyone not sharing his views would be right to be disturbed.

Any genuinely religious person is going to work within the moral framework that religion provides. That's only to be expected. Running on a platform of pushing a set of your religious views into law is a different matter entirely.

I'm well aware of the dangers of putting the Godless in charge. I'm Eastern Orthodox, and most of the persecution I mentioned was at the hands of the Soviet government. Commemoration of the martyrs of that regime don't even mention it by name; it's called the "Godless Authority". On the other hand, a specifically religious regime may be no better. Modern theocracies don't often have a diverse enough population to show us what kind of atrocities might result -- perhaps Sudan is a good indication though. That's not to say all religious regimes would do this any more than all godless regimes would imitate the atrocities of the Stalin era. But it's no guarantee of safety. A Constitutional policy of tolerance comes much closer. We need to guard very carefully against any erosion of it.

Again, it's not necessarily what he's actually going to be able to do, although if as president (unlikely now) he ever gets a Congress as compliant as the one Bush had to work with for 6 years the sky's the limit. That was frankly disastrous. I suggest you give John Dean's books a read if you don't yet appreciate just how disastrous it was. To use your metaphor, Bush did "walk through walls" in several areas, although the way had been well-prepared for him. A theocratic political disaster is no more savory than one that's power-hungry for merely power's sake.

In the context of right to life, you could clearly support it for reasons other then religious boundaries. It is silly to take something off the table simply because a group of people who goto a church and agree on the same things are associated with it. The same church believe in not murdering anyone, should we eradicate the influence of the Christian religion and make it legal to murder people? I think not and I even think you would agree that is even more of a silly idea.

Regardless of an association or how they have persecuted you and/or your kind, you have to look at the situation and derive the reasonings behind it. Saying GOD said so isn't an honest reason being put forth. Saying life starts with conception and all human life should be protected is. Saying you should protect human life because it's gods way, is how I was able to patch the murder scenario on to it above. And I think you even admitted the context of what he was saying was when he was talking to a specific group of people about a specific topic.

The fact of life is that there will always be actions that for to some groups agenda. Why? Because groups of people are generally not stupid. If it is a good idea, then several groups of people will have though of it, about it, or considered the effects of it. Even if the religion whack jobs are behind it, there could be a lot of people that isn't supporting it because of the religion. I don't know what church your a member of that has been screwed so bad, but I would hope that whoever we elect, even if it was a member of your church, would pull from their spiritual side of things in guidance to doing their jobs. You don't really want to see a godless world run by godless people. I can guarantee that anyone getting to a high governmental offices claiming that they don't believe in a god or never have and the idea of a god or religion has never shaped their judgment is lieing for some ulterior reasons. At least with Huckabee, it is out in the open and almost anything he does to act on the association with religion would need to be approved by at least 50 senators and 200 some congressmen. And even if that happens, it can be changed later by having a court over turn it on constitutionality grounds, electing other people to office, or an armed revolution. I mean think about this, your in a locked room with the only key thinking someone is going to walk through the walls.

Are you -crazy-? Paladins are probably the most powerful class in DnD! Oft ridiculed for being the choice of people wanting to play "easymode", both RP and combat-wise

Uh... I hate to tell you this, but paladins *are* one of the weakest classes, statistically. While you're right that they're very easy mechanically to play, there's just no end-game benefit to them.

The druid and cleric are by far the best classes in the game, combining strong melee with decent to strong spellcasting. But let us examine the paladin in detail:

Full base attack bonus, great saves, large hit die. Sounds fantastic. Throw in some limited healing and smite evil, and it sounds pretty great. But, lets take it level by level.

For the first 4-5 levels, you're a below fighter, though above most casting classes, as martial classes are strong in this range. Sure, you have great saves and some limited healing, but needing to split your stats to have strong cha and wis too means that your con will be lower than the fighter's, so your healing just makes up for lower hp. Furthermore, at that level, adding your level to damage once a day isn't that great, as in DnD you are supposed to have 4 encounters per day. The fighter, meanwhile, is getting his way up to power attack, cleave, weapon focus, and weapon specialisation in this range. that's +4 to damage (if he power attacks with his 1 point of weapon focus) on *every attack*, which is what the paladin gets to add once. Sure, the paladin is slightly more accurate on that one hit, adding his cha to attack, but that just doesn't stack up.

Move on from there to the sweet spot, level 6-13. At this point, the casters start coming into their own. The clerics are getting their protections from evil, their searing lights, and all that jazz. The druids are getting into wild shape, turning into something that can beat you in a straight fight, while still having spellcasting on their side. The sorcerer is getting fireball. At this point, the fighter is probably hunting a prestige class, but is not yet feeling the hurt of the martial character. If he multiclasses well, he can keep par in power with the casters. Not so for the paladin. Sure, his smite is up to doing a decent amount of damage. Hey, he can even use it almost once per encounter. His healing is starting to get useful, but the cleric pretty much has that covered. More and more, he's hurting for feats as the fighter's build is nearing completion, and he still has just 3-4 feats to his name, leaving him to power attack with a greatsword, at best, for an average of maybe 15 damage or so (7 from the weapon, 4 from strength, 4 from a decent power attack), and probably 33 smiting (8 more from power attack, he's going to throw the cha in there, and another 10 from level), something that the wizard at this point can reliable get out of scorching ray, a second level spell. The fighter isn't doing much better, but at least with his huge number of feats, he's probably doing something cool. Leap attacks, maybe, which increases his power attack multiplier to x3, letting him do a lot more damage for the effort.

Then, you leave the sweet spot. The casters are so far beyond the melee characters that most of them feel useless, except occasionally the fighter, who may have found the right prestige classes to be exquisitely optimized into some sort of godless killing machine. Not so for the paladin, who would need to spare one of his precious few feats to multiclass, and even still, it'd kill his two big class features. His smite looks less and less relevant with each passing level as the monsters get exponentially tougher, gaining 10-20 hit points for each 1 extra damage he can do. That healing of his is starting to make him harder to kill than the fighter, but he can't back it up enough damage for it to ever really come up.

Over all, the paladin is crippled by having his special abilities have the per day usage issues of high-end spellcasting, but at a power level that puts it below or on

It wouldn't surprise that some radical muzzy group was doing it. They are going to protect the Islamic world from the evil influences of the godless, heathen internet of the western world.

I always thought it was something like:


while(1) {
if(lever==REPUBLICAN) republican++;
if(lever==DEMOCRATIC) democratic++;
total=republican+democratic;
cout << "Republicans: " << (total*0.51) << " " << "Godless, pussy liberals: " << (total*0.49) << end;
}