Re: Vegetarianism/veganism, that has always baffled me as well. Either you eat some meat, or you do not! You're (not you of course) not fooling anyone by eating meat that only comes from things without hair.
Anyway, IMO if a Jew (or ANY religious person) thinks that God has died, he probably wasn't very devout to begin with, but that is not the question. I find that troubling, even as an atheist, that someone can say that god "died" because of one specific event. It seems that the horrors of one thing has blinded him to the horrors that are constantly happening around the world. If I were around (and knowledgeable) at the time of the crusades, I would probably say something similar. It's an emotional reaction to something you witnessed, denial.
Of course, none of that actually answers your question because, truly I don't know the answer. He may have been both, he may be neither.
> I will begin to believe this at such time as this is reflected in their voting choices.
So you are saying you never see any republicans vote outside party lines? I think you need to look a bit closer. They are there, but the neocons have Karl Rove, God, and terrorism (I mean their own, not the kind they claim to fight) to con (neo-con?) the masses into thinking they are the only choice that will keep the people alive.
> I long for the black and white world that you describe.
That's a rather trollish thing to say. I made a statement about one point and you take that to mean that I don't believe any of them? I happened to agree with much of what you said. In reality, I think that anyone who believes in a supernatural god is verging on idiocy or is dealing with some kind of mental imbalance. But that's my egotistical (and correct;) ) opinion and is ancillary to the discussion at hand.
The ones that argue about latin mass, and other silly specifics are even worse. At least the ones who try to force their views on the rest of the church. Which is not to say I classify all religions as having the same views, just that they possess many of the the same problems.
> How would you respond to a Catholic that argues that birth control is acceptable?
"Thanks for finally being reasonable?" I'm not sure how you'd expect me to respond... The truth is, I'd say "OK, good for you, I don't give a damn." Issues like birth control are not fundamental tenets of Catholicism. The basic issues seem to be the same as regular christianity (God loves you, the divinity of Jesus, you'll go to hell if you even think of doing evil) plus a pretty strict adherence to their own traditions that have little to no actual biblical basis (Immaculate conception of Mary, transubstantiation).
> The issue is further complicated because Judaism is orthopraxic [???]
Either you didn't use the correct word (misspelled something?) there or someone has taken it to mean something else entirely. As far as I can tell, what you are saying is "Judaism uses mechanical devices/appliances to fix physical deformities." I don't think that's what you meant.:) I couldn't find a dictionary with the word in it, and only a handful of web pages that use it. I'm curious where it comes from.
Also, not all christian sects are "orthodox." Mormons certainly are not.
> So, is an observant atheist Jew not a Jew by religion? Who are we to decide?
That is correct, observant or ignorant. Who are we? We are the ones who define what the term "atheist" means! It is the lack of a belief in any god, which is implicitly contradictory to a religion that worships a god. So if he's an atheist Jew, he has no religion (unless you are one of those people who foolishly argue that atheism is a religion; it is not). Therefore the word Jew means only heritage in this context.
I don't know how any of this helps my point. I'm not even sure what my point is right now, I just enjoy talking about it. HAND:)
> Seems your party is the most hateful around...it truly shows.
Wait, is that the party who hates having freedoms repealed, or the one that hates fags, arabs, asians, the UN, the EU, anyone who disagrees with them (read: terrorists)... I can never figure out which one is which.
> many conditions regarding fairness and the understanding that this privilege will not be abused for partisan purposes.
HAAHAHAAAAA... unbiased radio. What a noble concept! News flash: unless a radio station does NOTHING but play music, there is going to be political bias seeping through. Usually a LOT of it.
> Anyone acting outside the public interest is subject to having their license revoked.
And obviously you are the one who decides what is in the public's interest or not? Before you try to backpedal, that's exactly what you did when you said they do not serve the public good.
> After Sinclair releases their lips from the nipple of public support
So Sinclair is a public radio station funded directly by the government? I had no idea. Or are you setting up a false argument by claiming just because they use radio waves they are somehow publicly controlled?
> television is all but devoid of any useful value
After that, I was just waiting for you to trot out "I don't even own a TV," because it's obvious you haven't recently looked at one very closely. There is PLENTY of educational material on TV. Hell, Monster Garage is educational! Almost all of the Discovery channel, History Channel, A&E Biography, etc... And Fox news! (hehe)
> serves simply to turn the next generation into ritalin-addicted
You mentioned that American parenting is negligent, which is obviously bullshit (troll, flamebait, etc). Some INDIVIDUAL parents are bad. Those are the dumb fucks who think any time their kid acts up (read: acts like a kid) he needs another drug to control him (Rx Corps help that along too). The average kid is not on Ritalin or any other unnecessary, dangerous government-endorsed narcotics. (drug; ritalin isn't actually a narcotic, I used that word for emphasis).
> After all, there are an awful lot of "R"s in Texas who were "D"s in a previous life.
Please remember that not all Republicans are God-exploiting neocon fucks. Some of them still stand for the positive things Republicans stood for before Reagan.
Then they are Jewish by heritage (ethnicity), not by religion. I am talking only about religion, not what religion a particular group tends to embrace.
> When someone says the word 'God', I'm never quite sure what they mean > In all seriousness, would you care to say what you mean by the word 'God?'
I don't mean to imply that I can guess someone's particular religious beliefs just by the way they say the word, but in most cases "God" means "an incomprehensible and extremely powerful being that watches over everyone."
Then you can get into the questionable details, like whether he's a nice guy, if he judges us when we die, if he's the only one, if he's actually a "he," or if he ever had a son (seems to be a big one there).
There are clues, though. If a woman has a red dot on her forehead, she's probably Hindi (although not necessarily true any more). If someone is wearing a cross, they're probably Christian. It's hard to guess denomination though. If the person has a picture of an invisible pink unicorn on their shirt, they are either atheists or a very, very stupid Christian (which is not to say there aren't stupid atheists).
When someone says the word God, you know what they are talking about. When you are taking a picture of a video camera it is generally not immediately obvious what your point is.
> but I did go to college, so I'm obviously just as good
An Army man is an army man as soon as he finishes boot camp. A college graduate is a graduate when he gets his degree. So it's more like someone dropping out of a Masters program and saying it's just as good as a Bachelors.
I should have said space-based sci-fi, which I usually assume (possibly incorrectly). Sure you can make a love story that happens to be set in space, but that is not sci-fi if the drama of character interaction is the primary focus of the show.
Also, for most successful dramas, there are new characters introduced every once in a while. If it is a space ship, there is no possibility to add characters, just lose them.
> Well, thank God you don't tell stories for a living.
It's not about just stories, it has to make entertaining TV. You can do a lot more with a book than TV sometimes.
> you can be a waitress somewhere else where there's no smoking allowed, but why should you have to find another job?
Because you obviously have a difference of opinion with the management. They can choose to make a bar nonsmoking. And besides, what idiot would get a job in a bar and expect there to be no smoking (excluding cities with public smoking bans)? Only one who wants to complain a lot. That hypothetical waitress knew there would be smoke, took the job anyway. THAT WAS HER INFORMED DECISION. Stop trying to make decisions for me. This is a particularly touchy issue for me since my previous home town just banned smoking in every single public building EXCEPT the race track that conveniently "donates" money to the extremely corrupt local politicians (Wheeling, WV).
> if I want to change banks, all I have to do is remove my money and go to another one. Not so when you put your data into some MS applications
Have you ever seen a feature called "Save As?" To transfer money out of a bank, that means you already had an account. So to extend your analogy, you would have had to have been using Office to begin with. Therefore, to switch out, all you have to do is save all your files to another format and *poof* no more MS dependencies. Unless you can find a batch converter it may take a while, but it can be done quite easily.
> At the moment, by saying that, you're also saying, "You don't have to maintain compatibility
TXT is a pretty universal format. Is the RTF format closed and owned by Microsoft? Not to mention the fact that Wordpad (free with Windows) will read many.DOC files.
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> remember once, as a student, a substitute wouldn't give us his name - he was "Mr. P". This was to, in his words, avoid prank calls
Wow, someone really needs to change professions. What the heck was he thinking? It certainly wasn't for the awesome pay...
> Your average 15 year old (heck, even most 17 year olds)
Not to mention most 22 year olds will too.
> E.g., smoking. It's just that: better risk death later, than take the discomfort of quitting now.
Which is to say, that if you don't smoke, you will not die. EVERYONE risks death EVERY DAY.
> Today's devices require the use of two hands
Bullshit, I can operate my iPod mini with just my thumb (plus some other fingers curled around to keep from dropping it).
(BTW, I'm not a trolling Mac fanboy, it's the first piece of Apple equipment I have ever owned)
Re: Vegetarianism/veganism, that has always baffled me as well. Either you eat some meat, or you do not! You're (not you of course) not fooling anyone by eating meat that only comes from things without hair.
Anyway, IMO if a Jew (or ANY religious person) thinks that God has died, he probably wasn't very devout to begin with, but that is not the question. I find that troubling, even as an atheist, that someone can say that god "died" because of one specific event. It seems that the horrors of one thing has blinded him to the horrors that are constantly happening around the world. If I were around (and knowledgeable) at the time of the crusades, I would probably say something similar. It's an emotional reaction to something you witnessed, denial.
Of course, none of that actually answers your question because, truly I don't know the answer. He may have been both, he may be neither.
> I will begin to believe this at such time as this is reflected in their voting choices.
So you are saying you never see any republicans vote outside party lines? I think you need to look a bit closer. They are there, but the neocons have Karl Rove, God, and terrorism (I mean their own, not the kind they claim to fight) to con (neo-con?) the masses into thinking they are the only choice that will keep the people alive.
> I long for the black and white world that you describe.
;) ) opinion and is ancillary to the discussion at hand.
:) I couldn't find a dictionary with the word in it, and only a handful of web pages that use it. I'm curious where it comes from.
:)
That's a rather trollish thing to say. I made a statement about one point and you take that to mean that I don't believe any of them? I happened to agree with much of what you said. In reality, I think that anyone who believes in a supernatural god is verging on idiocy or is dealing with some kind of mental imbalance. But that's my egotistical (and correct
The ones that argue about latin mass, and other silly specifics are even worse. At least the ones who try to force their views on the rest of the church. Which is not to say I classify all religions as having the same views, just that they possess many of the the same problems.
> How would you respond to a Catholic that argues that birth control is acceptable?
"Thanks for finally being reasonable?" I'm not sure how you'd expect me to respond... The truth is, I'd say "OK, good for you, I don't give a damn." Issues like birth control are not fundamental tenets of Catholicism. The basic issues seem to be the same as regular christianity (God loves you, the divinity of Jesus, you'll go to hell if you even think of doing evil) plus a pretty strict adherence to their own traditions that have little to no actual biblical basis (Immaculate conception of Mary, transubstantiation).
> The issue is further complicated because Judaism is orthopraxic [???]
Either you didn't use the correct word (misspelled something?) there or someone has taken it to mean something else entirely. As far as I can tell, what you are saying is "Judaism uses mechanical devices/appliances to fix physical deformities." I don't think that's what you meant.
Also, not all christian sects are "orthodox." Mormons certainly are not.
> So, is an observant atheist Jew not a Jew by religion? Who are we to decide?
That is correct, observant or ignorant. Who are we? We are the ones who define what the term "atheist" means! It is the lack of a belief in any god, which is implicitly contradictory to a religion that worships a god. So if he's an atheist Jew, he has no religion (unless you are one of those people who foolishly argue that atheism is a religion; it is not). Therefore the word Jew means only heritage in this context.
I don't know how any of this helps my point. I'm not even sure what my point is right now, I just enjoy talking about it. HAND
> Seems your party is the most hateful around...it truly shows.
Wait, is that the party who hates having freedoms repealed, or the one that hates fags, arabs, asians, the UN, the EU, anyone who disagrees with them (read: terrorists)... I can never figure out which one is which.
> many conditions regarding fairness and the understanding that this privilege will not be abused for partisan purposes.
HAAHAHAAAAA... unbiased radio. What a noble concept! News flash: unless a radio station does NOTHING but play music, there is going to be political bias seeping through. Usually a LOT of it.
> Anyone acting outside the public interest is subject to having their license revoked.
And obviously you are the one who decides what is in the public's interest or not? Before you try to backpedal, that's exactly what you did when you said they do not serve the public good.
> After Sinclair releases their lips from the nipple of public support
So Sinclair is a public radio station funded directly by the government? I had no idea. Or are you setting up a false argument by claiming just because they use radio waves they are somehow publicly controlled?
> television is all but devoid of any useful value
After that, I was just waiting for you to trot out "I don't even own a TV," because it's obvious you haven't recently looked at one very closely. There is PLENTY of educational material on TV. Hell, Monster Garage is educational! Almost all of the Discovery channel, History Channel, A&E Biography, etc... And Fox news! (hehe)
> serves simply to turn the next generation into ritalin-addicted
You mentioned that American parenting is negligent, which is obviously bullshit (troll, flamebait, etc). Some INDIVIDUAL parents are bad. Those are the dumb fucks who think any time their kid acts up (read: acts like a kid) he needs another drug to control him (Rx Corps help that along too). The average kid is not on Ritalin or any other unnecessary, dangerous government-endorsed narcotics.
(drug; ritalin isn't actually a narcotic, I used that word for emphasis).
> After all, there are an awful lot of "R"s in Texas who were "D"s in a previous life.
Please remember that not all Republicans are God-exploiting neocon fucks. Some of them still stand for the positive things Republicans stood for before Reagan.
> One can only meet so many atheistic Jews
Then they are Jewish by heritage (ethnicity), not by religion. I am talking only about religion, not what religion a particular group tends to embrace.
I thought Hindi was plural of Hindu.
I forgot the obvious: If they say Allah, they're probably Muslim, if they talk about Vishnu or [insert other Hindi Gods]... well, you get the point.
> When someone says the word 'God', I'm never quite sure what they mean
> In all seriousness, would you care to say what you mean by the word 'God?'
I don't mean to imply that I can guess someone's particular religious beliefs just by the way they say the word, but in most cases "God" means "an incomprehensible and extremely powerful being that watches over everyone."
Then you can get into the questionable details, like whether he's a nice guy, if he judges us when we die, if he's the only one, if he's actually a "he," or if he ever had a son (seems to be a big one there).
There are clues, though. If a woman has a red dot on her forehead, she's probably Hindi (although not necessarily true any more). If someone is wearing a cross, they're probably Christian. It's hard to guess denomination though. If the person has a picture of an invisible pink unicorn on their shirt, they are either atheists or a very, very stupid Christian (which is not to say there aren't stupid atheists).
When someone says the word God, you know what they are talking about. When you are taking a picture of a video camera it is generally not immediately obvious what your point is.
> but I did go to college, so I'm obviously just as good
An Army man is an army man as soon as he finishes boot camp. A college graduate is a graduate when he gets his degree. So it's more like someone dropping out of a Masters program and saying it's just as good as a Bachelors.
Awesome! Thanks, that is exactly the kind of thing I wanted. And having one that glows is an added bonus :)
Wow, really? I had always thought the difference would be much more dramatic. Now I know.
> How about drama? [...]
I should have said space-based sci-fi, which I usually assume (possibly incorrectly). Sure you can make a love story that happens to be set in space, but that is not sci-fi if the drama of character interaction is the primary focus of the show.
Also, for most successful dramas, there are new characters introduced every once in a while. If it is a space ship, there is no possibility to add characters, just lose them.
> Well, thank God you don't tell stories for a living.
It's not about just stories, it has to make entertaining TV. You can do a lot more with a book than TV sometimes.
> you can be a waitress somewhere else where there's no smoking allowed, but why should you have to find another job?
Because you obviously have a difference of opinion with the management. They can choose to make a bar nonsmoking. And besides, what idiot would get a job in a bar and expect there to be no smoking (excluding cities with public smoking bans)? Only one who wants to complain a lot. That hypothetical waitress knew there would be smoke, took the job anyway. THAT WAS HER INFORMED DECISION. Stop trying to make decisions for me. This is a particularly touchy issue for me since my previous home town just banned smoking in every single public building EXCEPT the race track that conveniently "donates" money to the extremely corrupt local politicians (Wheeling, WV).
> if I want to change banks, all I have to do is remove my money and go to another one. Not so when you put your data into some MS applications
Have you ever seen a feature called "Save As?" To transfer money out of a bank, that means you already had an account. So to extend your analogy, you would have had to have been using Office to begin with. Therefore, to switch out, all you have to do is save all your files to another format and *poof* no more MS dependencies. Unless you can find a batch converter it may take a while, but it can be done quite easily.
> At the moment, by saying that, you're also saying, "You don't have to maintain compatibility
.DOC files.
TXT is a pretty universal format. Is the RTF format closed and owned by Microsoft? Not to mention the fact that Wordpad (free with Windows) will read many
> for the express purpose of denying the actual producer any claim on his due reward?
Who said he is due any reward at all?