Publish it minus the soundtrack perhaps. IIRC, the music in the movie is still copyrighted and therefore you can't distribute the movie with the soundtrack intact. Someone correct me if I'm confused on this.
Publish it minus the soundtrack perhaps. IIRC, the music in the movie is still copyrighted and therefore you can't distribute the movie with the soundtrack intact. Someone correct me if I'm confused on this.
I'm more than happy to deal with the occaisional driver problem if I get to play better games. Then there's the fact that you can do a lot more cool things with computer games than you can with console games. How many console games have several hundred user-created maps or levels available? How about mods or total conversions? How about new skins, weapons, characters, etc? Can't do any of that very well or very easily with consoles now. Even as consoles become more PC-like, it's still gonna take them a long time to get anywhere near the flexibility you get with a PC and a game like Halflife or Quake (or any of a few dozen other games).
I think the only reason consoles make so much money is because the hardware is cheap and there are millions of kids that want to play games, but parents aren't always that willing to let them have a computer, or if they do have a computer, they aren't willing to let them play games on it (It cost $3000!! You are not gonna use it like a Nintendo!!). With any luck this will change more over time and we'll have a lot more powerful PCs at lower prices and kids will have better access to them. Seems to me that once you've played some really good PC games, you can't really go back to playing on consoles. They just can't manage the same kind of depth or complexity of gameplay along with flexibility to change, tailor or improve the game.
all you do when you pass regulations and whine to the government about your labor relations is make businesses more expensive to run, ergo less money to attract more employees, ergo fewer people paid less.
and before someone spews that employers are just greedy, remember that they are people too. happy employees make for a good working environment, which they like. better employees, for which they would pay more to get on their side, make for a good working environment, which they like.
Seems to me that he's got a real thing against government regulation, like corps will just do the right thing all on their own because there's always a financial incentive to do so. I think that's stupid and gave an example of why. What's your problem with that?
all you do when you pass regulations and whine to the government about your labor relations is make businesses more expensive to run, ergo less money to attract more employees, ergo fewer people paid less.
Actually, you also make it illegal for companies to have people working in areas that are hazardous, often needlessly hazardous, especially without fully informing them of the hazards. This prevents corporations from doing the kinds of things that many of them do (or did) all the time. Namely lying to the employees about the nature of the substances they are working with or around, or skimping on safety equipment and training for employees. Sure, sometimes this can cause problems for the corp, but it has happened many times, so liability was obviously not a bigger consideration than the cost savings of not using proper equipment and procedures, etc.
Ok, Jackson may have had some influence on that case. But racism has become a really easy target too. It's easy to get a HUGE number of black people to protest the mistreatment of black people. It's easy to understand and it's easy to see immediate effects of such mistreatment. Then there's the fact that there was some seriously strong evidence against Texaco to begin with. Without that, I doubt Texaco would have settled at all. I don't see how this situation supports the idea that boycotts work against major corporations these days. Especially corporations that have very diverse product lines. And especially in cases involving IP. It's just too hard to get enough people to understand what's going on and to get them to connect all the dots and see where it will probably lead.
But as it stands, only the few offices near the top are true political appointments, and in some cases, even they survive administrations.
Actually, there's a few hundred politically appointed offices that get replaced after most every election. They do go pretty far down the chain. It would suck if every government worker lost their job after an election though. You create a huge group that votes not for the best person, but for whomever will save their job.
As for boycotts, as I asked another poster, show me a successful boycott of a major corporation in the last 20 years. A fortune 100 corp.
Please give an example of a successful boycott of a major corporation in the last 20 years. A Fortune 100 corp. I doubt you'll find one. If you do, I'd love to know how it worked.
The post I'm replying to was marked troll. While I'm not a political science major or anything, his comment seems pretty plausable. Is it really a pretty closed loop that gets judges promoted up the ranks? Are there problems with the nomination process? Is there any good way to spot corruption in that system? He does seem to have a point about the journalists. Respond and rebutt instead of just marking it as a troll.
The drug war is only necessary to those who are profiting from it. What makes you think that mainstream drug use is any worse than mainstream alcohol use? If it's done responsibly, it's not a problem. Millions of people smoke pot and do other drugs in moderation and manage to hold down a job and have a normal family life. Sure, you hear about drug-related deaths and such all the time. The same goes for alcohol. We hear about alcohol-related deaths pretty much every day as well. In the end it is up to you whether you want to ingest the drugs. It shouldn't be the government's decision. I'd rather we use the billions we spend every year on the drug war for treatment (which would cost less and accomplish a LOT more) rather than to further errode our rights in this country. In 20 years, we haven't made a dent in the amount of drugs coming into this country, despite the untold billions we've given our government to do so. I think there are really only 2 possibilities. Either the government doesn't want to win the drug war, or it can't. Either way, it's time to try something new instead of continuing to toss our money down this black hole.
I think the position was more like "If people don't want to see "indecent" websites, they can use filterware to prevent it themselves. The Internet should not be filtered for everyone against their wishes." The CDA was grossly unconstitutional anyway, and I'm glad it's gone.
There's also the generic idea that kids have to surmount social pressures. Kids have to grow some thick skin if they want to survive in the real world.
Not much chance to learn when you get kicked out of school as soon as you make a mistake.
He calls the freaking secretary, who *CAN'T* say anything to the media because that'd cost her her job
Why doesn't the secretary refer him to someone who CAN say something?
Bullying has been a part of schooling since schools were invented. Hell, read the "Almanzo" book from Little House on the Prairie.
The problem is that kids didn't used to get kicked out of school for responding to bullies. THAT is the issue here.
That's right: claim that he's a gun freak who's gonna kill everyone.
And why the hell should they be allowed to do this kind of crap? They can claim he's a killer, but he can't play along with it?
I'm not trying to excuse the bullies, but want to point out that there are two sides to the story, point out that Sean is not completely free of blame
Like hell you aren't. Kids are in school to learn and shouldn't have to put up with this kind of bullshit from assholes that don't have anything better to do than harrass people who are weaker and/or less popular than themselves. They should expell the little dipshits that like to make life hell for others instead of the kids that have to put up with it because the administrators don't give a flying fuck about it! Yes, Sean is partly to blame, even his father said that, but look at what happened! He gets kicked out of school and the bullies get nothing! If the bullies were being as "clever" as you think and trying to get him kicked out of school, then they should be the ones being kicked out.
Re:Way to fight back and bogus "alternative" schoo
on
Sean In The Middle
·
· Score: 2
Exactly. I tried making this point last time we had a story like this. It's always your word against at least 3 other people it seems. Guess who ends up winning?
However, I think your perception of Christians is based (as is our perceptions of most groups) on a vocal minority that doesn't necessarily represent the group as a whole (or even any significant faction thereof).
This is a good point. I don't really mean to imply that all Christians are the same. I know too many that aren't. My mom happens to be a devout Christian. Her particular group doesn't want to have anything to do with politics though. I wish more Christians were like that;) I know other Christians who actually are the "live and let live" type. So I'm sorry if I seem to be characterizing all Christians this way. However, if you listen to some of these groups that are quite vocal, they often claim (or at the very least imply) that they speak for all Christians rather than their group. I also know that a lot of Christians buy into this or at least let them continue to make such claims. But in the end, it's the vocal groups that I have the real problem with, not Christians in general.
Similarly, if you consider the effects of laws called for by these people (decency laws, etc) are merely attempts to codify laws to protect people just like laws against pollution, murder, etc, then you will see that they are not trying to take over your lives (well, some might be...) but ratehr trying to look out for society's well being.
True, it may be well-intentioned, but I still think it's wrong. Not wrong that they are proposing laws, but the tactics they use to get them passed. They don't seem to want to live with people who don't believe in their religion. They turn it into a Christians vs. heathens battle every time. I've seen this quite recently in my own town. There was a topless strip club here that some people decided was too close to their church. It was in compliance with city zoning laws, so they decided to change the law. This place was not an eyesore. It looked like any other club or nice bar really. Clean and nothing offensive about the exterior or even the name of the club. Yet they claimed that they needed to shut the place down to protect their children from the "filth" that takes place in the club. They picketed outside with signs that said as much. How the heck is that? What would children be doing in there anyway? How would they get in? It's not like you can just walk into a place like that without being carded at the door. It's ridiculous, but they use the tactic to manipulate people. They eventually succeeded in getting a zoning change that made it illegal for that club to sell liquor. Thankfully the club owners didn't take this persecution lying down. They simply changed from a topless club that sells alcohol to a completely nude club that is BYOB. The church members were not amused, and are now trying to get more changes made to the law to drive the club out of business.
This isn't even a very egregious example. (the vocal minority of)Christians often decry others as being "tools of the devil" (another great line from the picket signs) or cache all their grievances in "for the children" manipulative nonsense, as if every place in town should be a suitable place for children. How does one make a rational defense for themselves in the face of other people's unflappable devotion to their religion? I don't believe in their religion, so why should I be subjected to the same rules? They often seem arbitrary and silly. Nudity is bad? According to the Bible, humans were created nude. Lived that way until they got tossed out of the garden. We are born nude. Many people don't have a problem with it. Some religions even embrace it. Yet Christians (using my town as an example) seem to want to shut down any place that allows people to see nudity. They try to shut down strip clubs. They try to shut down adult video stores. They go after any place that sells adult magazines, even from behind the counter. The bad thing is that they succede sometimes. Not every time, but they are nothing if not persistent. I sometimes wish God would have given them something useful to do with their time rather than try to make the rest of the world conform to their beliefs.
I know you're thinking that it's just their view of how the world should be vs. my view, but I still think there is an important difference. I don't advocate trying to take away the places and things that they enjoy. I don't advocate tearing down the bible book store. I don't advocate the paving-over of churches. I don't attack the things they want to have. If I don't like what is said or done in churches, I simply won't go there. Unfortunately there seems to be no room for compromise with them. As far as they are concerned it's their way or the highway. Why can't they understand that not everbody believes what they believe and simply leave us alone as well? Perhaps you can't answer that unless you are such a person in the first place, in which case you probably wouldn't answer it anyway. While I believe you're right that it is a vocal minority that causes people to bash Christians in general, I wonder why Christians don't make it known that these groups don't speak for all Christians. Otherwise, like anything else, Christians in general will take heat due to guilt by association. If I were a Christian, I'd probably be quite annoyed with some of these groups and make that known to them and everyone else. I haven't really seen that happen, which is probably why I assumed that Christians in general must agree with these vocal groups.
Again, you are "dictating" the morality that everone should leave everyone else alone, unless they are causing harm to others. Now there's nothing wrong with that as long as you realize that it is morally equivalent to some Bible-thumper (or me) "dictating" that you should use pornography. What's the difference here?
I see your point. My participation in this thread was a result of weston claiming that people interested in porn somehow lacked integrity. Then you claimed that one of the posts responding to weston was anti-Christian. Thus began my argument that the idea of leaving others alone unless they are harming someone else is a better one than the idea of basing our laws on religious beliefs. I don't have a problem if some laws happen to correspond with certain religious beliefs. Outlawing murder is something that I can get behind for purely secular reasons.
It seems that the real problem I have is with people advocating laws based on their religious beliefs and seeming to believe that I should readily understand that something is bad because *insert deity* says it is bad. We are supposed to have freedom of religion in this country, so it seems to me that if one religion manages to get enough influence in our government to change the law to reflect its own beliefs, it renders freedom of religion a meaningless right. I'm not trying to bash Christians or anyone else. It just happens to work out that way since Christians are by far the most numerous and vocal religious group in this country and seem to have a real determination to make the laws of this country match those of their religion. Witness the various Christian organizations that are very heavily involved in politics and constantly push for new censorship and decency laws and such.
Pornography certainly falls into that category, whether it's the thousands of people exploited by the industry or the millions of customers who would rather see other human beings as a series of moist orifices rather than people. It's this attitude that (some) people are just meat for our entertainment that is harmful.
I don't know who you think you're representing with those words, but it's not anyone that I know. Those are real people who pose nude or have sex in front of a camera. I don't think of them as anything but real people. In fact, if I didn't see them as such, I probably wouldn't have any interest in porn. Maybe you find it convenient to portray people who enjoy seeing people's bodies or watching them have sex as just seeing those people as "a series of moist orifices", but I find it to be a straw man that should be left out of the discussion. You obviously have absolutely no idea what I think about the people I see in porn movies or pictures. You have simply decided that this is what I think in order to give yourself an easier time attacking me for it. The sad thing is that a lot of people will fall for this. The ironic thing is that you will probably continue to make that kind of statement in the future, regardless of whether it's accurate or not.
I understand perfectly what his _point_ was. His _point_ was that he thinks Christians are idiots and their views are stupid because he disagrees with them.
Whoa. Bigtime wrong answer there. That's not what I think at all. I certainly don't think that all Christians are idiots. I know many who aren't. While I might not agree with their views sometimes, I don't believe their views are stupid. Let me explain what I DO think. I think that Christians should be allowed to believe what they like and live according to those beliefs. I think that we all live in a world where people around us do things that we don't agree with. I think that we should all live our own lives and make our own decisions, as long as those decisions don't have as a substantial effect the harming of others or the removal of their freedoms.
I understand that your beef with this statement is that people have different ideas about what harms others.
Pornography certainly falls into that category, whether it's the thousands of people exploited by the industry or the millions of customers who would rather see other human beings as a series of moist orifices rather than people. It's this attitude that (some) people are just meat for our entertainment that is harmful.
As I stated earlier, it seems that only Christians (or others who are against sex or porn) believe that people watching porn see the people they are watching as "meat." I find that somewhat disturbing. I also don't think that the porn industry exploits people any more than most other industries. Hell, organized religion has exploited people for centuries! That's the way most of the world works.
It would be nice if it wasn't that way, but even if you could end the exploitation, there would still be many many people who want make or watch porn. Go to any number of amateur (i mean real amateur, not corporate-owned amateur) sex websites. There are people making their own movies in their own bedrooms to sell to others. You could kill the "adult film industry" tomorrow, and it would simply pop right back up again. People like sex. People like having sex. People like watching sex. Many people sometimes like to be watched when they're having sex. That's all it takes. Human nature.
Gee, I thought a community that prides itself on holding sacred the free exchange of information would practive what they preach.
If/.ers didn't believe in such things, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Your post would have been deleted and your point of view erased from existance here. Perhaps you are confusing disagreement with censorship. Understandable since many prominent Christians seem to think those things are equivalent. If they disagree with something, they believe it should be censored so that nobody has access to it.
Slashdot Mirror
Publish it minus the soundtrack perhaps. IIRC, the music in the movie is still copyrighted and therefore you can't distribute the movie with the soundtrack intact. Someone correct me if I'm confused on this.
Replied to the wrong post. I'll go reply to the right one.
Publish it minus the soundtrack perhaps. IIRC, the music in the movie is still copyrighted and therefore you can't distribute the movie with the soundtrack intact. Someone correct me if I'm confused on this.
I'm more than happy to deal with the occaisional driver problem if I get to play better games. Then there's the fact that you can do a lot more cool things with computer games than you can with console games. How many console games have several hundred user-created maps or levels available? How about mods or total conversions? How about new skins, weapons, characters, etc? Can't do any of that very well or very easily with consoles now. Even as consoles become more PC-like, it's still gonna take them a long time to get anywhere near the flexibility you get with a PC and a game like Halflife or Quake (or any of a few dozen other games).
I think the only reason consoles make so much money is because the hardware is cheap and there are millions of kids that want to play games, but parents aren't always that willing to let them have a computer, or if they do have a computer, they aren't willing to let them play games on it (It cost $3000!! You are not gonna use it like a Nintendo!!). With any luck this will change more over time and we'll have a lot more powerful PCs at lower prices and kids will have better access to them. Seems to me that once you've played some really good PC games, you can't really go back to playing on consoles. They just can't manage the same kind of depth or complexity of gameplay along with flexibility to change, tailor or improve the game.
Console games will never be as good as PC games until everyone has an HDTV and the consoles themselves become a lot more like PCs.
Strawman. That's all I've got to say here.
How so? This is what the poster wrote:
all you do when you pass regulations and whine to the government about your labor relations is make businesses more expensive to run, ergo less money to attract more employees, ergo fewer people paid less.
and before someone spews that employers are just greedy, remember that they are people too. happy employees make for a good working environment, which they like. better employees, for which they would pay more to get on their side, make for a good working environment, which they like.
Seems to me that he's got a real thing against government regulation, like corps will just do the right thing all on their own because there's always a financial incentive to do so. I think that's stupid and gave an example of why. What's your problem with that?
all you do when you pass regulations and whine to the government about your labor relations is make businesses more expensive to run, ergo less money to attract more employees, ergo fewer people paid less.
Actually, you also make it illegal for companies to have people working in areas that are hazardous, often needlessly hazardous, especially without fully informing them of the hazards. This prevents corporations from doing the kinds of things that many of them do (or did) all the time. Namely lying to the employees about the nature of the substances they are working with or around, or skimping on safety equipment and training for employees. Sure, sometimes this can cause problems for the corp, but it has happened many times, so liability was obviously not a bigger consideration than the cost savings of not using proper equipment and procedures, etc.
Ok, Jackson may have had some influence on that case. But racism has become a really easy target too. It's easy to get a HUGE number of black people to protest the mistreatment of black people. It's easy to understand and it's easy to see immediate effects of such mistreatment. Then there's the fact that there was some seriously strong evidence against Texaco to begin with. Without that, I doubt Texaco would have settled at all. I don't see how this situation supports the idea that boycotts work against major corporations these days. Especially corporations that have very diverse product lines. And especially in cases involving IP. It's just too hard to get enough people to understand what's going on and to get them to connect all the dots and see where it will probably lead.
But as it stands, only the few offices near the top are true political appointments, and in some cases, even they survive administrations.
Actually, there's a few hundred politically appointed offices that get replaced after most every election. They do go pretty far down the chain. It would suck if every government worker lost their job after an election though. You create a huge group that votes not for the best person, but for whomever will save their job.
As for boycotts, as I asked another poster, show me a successful boycott of a major corporation in the last 20 years. A fortune 100 corp.
Please give an example of a successful boycott of a major corporation in the last 20 years. A Fortune 100 corp. I doubt you'll find one. If you do, I'd love to know how it worked.
The post I'm replying to was marked troll. While I'm not a political science major or anything, his comment seems pretty plausable. Is it really a pretty closed loop that gets judges promoted up the ranks? Are there problems with the nomination process? Is there any good way to spot corruption in that system? He does seem to have a point about the journalists. Respond and rebutt instead of just marking it as a troll.
educated, informed and fair-minded
None of those adjectives spring to mind when speaking of the population of the US.
The drug war is only necessary to those who are profiting from it. What makes you think that mainstream drug use is any worse than mainstream alcohol use? If it's done responsibly, it's not a problem. Millions of people smoke pot and do other drugs in moderation and manage to hold down a job and have a normal family life. Sure, you hear about drug-related deaths and such all the time. The same goes for alcohol. We hear about alcohol-related deaths pretty much every day as well. In the end it is up to you whether you want to ingest the drugs. It shouldn't be the government's decision. I'd rather we use the billions we spend every year on the drug war for treatment (which would cost less and accomplish a LOT more) rather than to further errode our rights in this country. In 20 years, we haven't made a dent in the amount of drugs coming into this country, despite the untold billions we've given our government to do so. I think there are really only 2 possibilities. Either the government doesn't want to win the drug war, or it can't. Either way, it's time to try something new instead of continuing to toss our money down this black hole.
This is basic business.
Basic to whom? Certainly not anyone who has an inkling of how the US economy functions.
I think the position was more like "If people don't want to see "indecent" websites, they can use filterware to prevent it themselves. The Internet should not be filtered for everyone against their wishes." The CDA was grossly unconstitutional anyway, and I'm glad it's gone.
But not much more morbid than the results of an overpopulated earth.
There's also the generic idea that kids have to surmount social pressures. Kids have to grow some thick skin if they want to survive in the real world.
Not much chance to learn when you get kicked out of school as soon as you make a mistake.
He calls the freaking secretary, who *CAN'T* say anything to the media because that'd cost her her job
Why doesn't the secretary refer him to someone who CAN say something?
Bullying has been a part of schooling since schools were invented. Hell, read the "Almanzo" book from Little House on the Prairie.
The problem is that kids didn't used to get kicked out of school for responding to bullies. THAT is the issue here.
That's right: claim that he's a gun freak who's gonna kill everyone.
And why the hell should they be allowed to do this kind of crap? They can claim he's a killer, but he can't play along with it?
I'm not trying to excuse the bullies, but want to point out that there are two sides to the story, point out that Sean is not completely free of blame
Like hell you aren't. Kids are in school to learn and shouldn't have to put up with this kind of bullshit from assholes that don't have anything better to do than harrass people who are weaker and/or less popular than themselves. They should expell the little dipshits that like to make life hell for others instead of the kids that have to put up with it because the administrators don't give a flying fuck about it! Yes, Sean is partly to blame, even his father said that, but look at what happened! He gets kicked out of school and the bullies get nothing! If the bullies were being as "clever" as you think and trying to get him kicked out of school, then they should be the ones being kicked out.
Exactly. I tried making this point last time we had a story like this. It's always your word against at least 3 other people it seems. Guess who ends up winning?
I never said you should do things just the same way the previous guys did. THAT would probably be pretty dumb.
And there does appear to be a large body of people who fit into that area of the venn diagram.
A large body? How bout some names to back this statement up?
Yeah, whenever someone fails at something, we should just give up on that thing forever. People don't seem to understand this.
However, I think your perception of Christians is based (as is our perceptions of most groups) on a vocal minority that doesn't necessarily represent the group as a whole (or even any significant faction thereof).
This is a good point. I don't really mean to imply that all Christians are the same. I know too many that aren't. My mom happens to be a devout Christian. Her particular group doesn't want to have anything to do with politics though. I wish more Christians were like that ;) I know other Christians who actually are the "live and let live" type. So I'm sorry if I seem to be characterizing all Christians this way. However, if you listen to some of these groups that are quite vocal, they often claim (or at the very least imply) that they speak for all Christians rather than their group. I also know that a lot of Christians buy into this or at least let them continue to make such claims. But in the end, it's the vocal groups that I have the real problem with, not Christians in general.
Similarly, if you consider the effects of laws called for by these people (decency laws, etc) are merely attempts to codify laws to protect people just like laws against pollution, murder, etc, then you will see that they are not trying to take over your lives (well, some might be...) but ratehr trying to look out for society's well being.
True, it may be well-intentioned, but I still think it's wrong. Not wrong that they are proposing laws, but the tactics they use to get them passed. They don't seem to want to live with people who don't believe in their religion. They turn it into a Christians vs. heathens battle every time. I've seen this quite recently in my own town. There was a topless strip club here that some people decided was too close to their church. It was in compliance with city zoning laws, so they decided to change the law. This place was not an eyesore. It looked like any other club or nice bar really. Clean and nothing offensive about the exterior or even the name of the club. Yet they claimed that they needed to shut the place down to protect their children from the "filth" that takes place in the club. They picketed outside with signs that said as much. How the heck is that? What would children be doing in there anyway? How would they get in? It's not like you can just walk into a place like that without being carded at the door. It's ridiculous, but they use the tactic to manipulate people. They eventually succeeded in getting a zoning change that made it illegal for that club to sell liquor. Thankfully the club owners didn't take this persecution lying down. They simply changed from a topless club that sells alcohol to a completely nude club that is BYOB. The church members were not amused, and are now trying to get more changes made to the law to drive the club out of business.
This isn't even a very egregious example. (the vocal minority of)Christians often decry others as being "tools of the devil" (another great line from the picket signs) or cache all their grievances in "for the children" manipulative nonsense, as if every place in town should be a suitable place for children. How does one make a rational defense for themselves in the face of other people's unflappable devotion to their religion? I don't believe in their religion, so why should I be subjected to the same rules? They often seem arbitrary and silly. Nudity is bad? According to the Bible, humans were created nude. Lived that way until they got tossed out of the garden. We are born nude. Many people don't have a problem with it. Some religions even embrace it. Yet Christians (using my town as an example) seem to want to shut down any place that allows people to see nudity. They try to shut down strip clubs. They try to shut down adult video stores. They go after any place that sells adult magazines, even from behind the counter. The bad thing is that they succede sometimes. Not every time, but they are nothing if not persistent. I sometimes wish God would have given them something useful to do with their time rather than try to make the rest of the world conform to their beliefs.
I know you're thinking that it's just their view of how the world should be vs. my view, but I still think there is an important difference. I don't advocate trying to take away the places and things that they enjoy. I don't advocate tearing down the bible book store. I don't advocate the paving-over of churches. I don't attack the things they want to have. If I don't like what is said or done in churches, I simply won't go there. Unfortunately there seems to be no room for compromise with them. As far as they are concerned it's their way or the highway. Why can't they understand that not everbody believes what they believe and simply leave us alone as well? Perhaps you can't answer that unless you are such a person in the first place, in which case you probably wouldn't answer it anyway. While I believe you're right that it is a vocal minority that causes people to bash Christians in general, I wonder why Christians don't make it known that these groups don't speak for all Christians. Otherwise, like anything else, Christians in general will take heat due to guilt by association. If I were a Christian, I'd probably be quite annoyed with some of these groups and make that known to them and everyone else. I haven't really seen that happen, which is probably why I assumed that Christians in general must agree with these vocal groups.
Again, you are "dictating" the morality that everone should leave everyone else alone, unless they are causing harm to others. Now there's nothing wrong with that as long as you realize that it is morally equivalent to some Bible-thumper (or me) "dictating" that you should use pornography. What's the difference here?
I see your point. My participation in this thread was a result of weston claiming that people interested in porn somehow lacked integrity. Then you claimed that one of the posts responding to weston was anti-Christian. Thus began my argument that the idea of leaving others alone unless they are harming someone else is a better one than the idea of basing our laws on religious beliefs. I don't have a problem if some laws happen to correspond with certain religious beliefs. Outlawing murder is something that I can get behind for purely secular reasons.
It seems that the real problem I have is with people advocating laws based on their religious beliefs and seeming to believe that I should readily understand that something is bad because *insert deity* says it is bad. We are supposed to have freedom of religion in this country, so it seems to me that if one religion manages to get enough influence in our government to change the law to reflect its own beliefs, it renders freedom of religion a meaningless right. I'm not trying to bash Christians or anyone else. It just happens to work out that way since Christians are by far the most numerous and vocal religious group in this country and seem to have a real determination to make the laws of this country match those of their religion. Witness the various Christian organizations that are very heavily involved in politics and constantly push for new censorship and decency laws and such.
Sorry for the confusion.
Pornography certainly falls into that category, whether it's the thousands of people exploited by the industry or the millions of customers who would rather see other human beings as a series of moist orifices rather than people. It's this attitude that (some) people are just meat for our entertainment that is harmful.
I don't know who you think you're representing with those words, but it's not anyone that I know. Those are real people who pose nude or have sex in front of a camera. I don't think of them as anything but real people. In fact, if I didn't see them as such, I probably wouldn't have any interest in porn. Maybe you find it convenient to portray people who enjoy seeing people's bodies or watching them have sex as just seeing those people as "a series of moist orifices", but I find it to be a straw man that should be left out of the discussion. You obviously have absolutely no idea what I think about the people I see in porn movies or pictures. You have simply decided that this is what I think in order to give yourself an easier time attacking me for it. The sad thing is that a lot of people will fall for this. The ironic thing is that you will probably continue to make that kind of statement in the future, regardless of whether it's accurate or not.
I understand perfectly what his _point_ was. His _point_ was that he thinks Christians are idiots and their views are stupid because he disagrees with them.
Whoa. Bigtime wrong answer there. That's not what I think at all. I certainly don't think that all Christians are idiots. I know many who aren't. While I might not agree with their views sometimes, I don't believe their views are stupid. Let me explain what I DO think. I think that Christians should be allowed to believe what they like and live according to those beliefs. I think that we all live in a world where people around us do things that we don't agree with. I think that we should all live our own lives and make our own decisions, as long as those decisions don't have as a substantial effect the harming of others or the removal of their freedoms.
I understand that your beef with this statement is that people have different ideas about what harms others.
Pornography certainly falls into that category, whether it's the thousands of people exploited by the industry or the millions of customers who would rather see other human beings as a series of moist orifices rather than people. It's this attitude that (some) people are just meat for our entertainment that is harmful.
As I stated earlier, it seems that only Christians (or others who are against sex or porn) believe that people watching porn see the people they are watching as "meat." I find that somewhat disturbing. I also don't think that the porn industry exploits people any more than most other industries. Hell, organized religion has exploited people for centuries! That's the way most of the world works.
It would be nice if it wasn't that way, but even if you could end the exploitation, there would still be many many people who want make or watch porn. Go to any number of amateur (i mean real amateur, not corporate-owned amateur) sex websites. There are people making their own movies in their own bedrooms to sell to others. You could kill the "adult film industry" tomorrow, and it would simply pop right back up again. People like sex. People like having sex. People like watching sex. Many people sometimes like to be watched when they're having sex. That's all it takes. Human nature.
Gee, I thought a community that prides itself on holding sacred the free exchange of information would practive what they preach.
If /.ers didn't believe in such things, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Your post would have been deleted and your point of view erased from existance here. Perhaps you are confusing disagreement with censorship. Understandable since many prominent Christians seem to think those things are equivalent. If they disagree with something, they believe it should be censored so that nobody has access to it.