I thought I was done on this thread, but seeing your posts accusing me of haughtiness, calling people ignorant, and saying that I said things I did not (dismissed out of hand?) I will respond in the only way I know how.
Point to one scripture of the Bible (new or old testament) that specifically prohibits military service. As you said, you need to back up what you say, so where is the proof you are basing your opinions on?
I can save you a huge volume of time and effort. It's not in there. Careful what you take from your own mind and place in the context of the bible. Saying scripture is "complex" when it is transparent is either an attempt to insert your own ideas (legalism) or an admission of lack of understanding.
I understand your point about making a case for myself, however I am firmly of the opinion that you are your best teacher and that knowledge won from your own labors is retained longer and more intimately known.
In addition, just quoting english scriptures to people will not provide them with the interlocking theological framework and categorical reinforcement necessary to understand and retain the doctrine. Nor does knowing a scripture or two that seems to prove your point make your point valid doctrine.
I am sorry if my brevity was taken for haughtiness, but the bible makes its own case. It is your responsibility to learn it. All I was recomending was taking another look at the facts of the Bible. I probably should have encouraged him to do as I have done and learn some Greek and Hebrew, study systematic theology, and get a pastor who is a scholar first and a fundraiser last. But hey, I ain't trying to run someone's life here, just make a simple recomendation, ya know?
Just some food for thought: If you are wagering your eternal salvation on a book, you might want to know what is in that book. Taking someone else's word for it without intense self study and verification is just asking for trouble. Too many teachers and "believers" ransack the scriptures in an attempt to find substantiation for their worldly preconceived beliefs for you to not be wary when listening to someone's interpretation.
"This is a morally dubious proposition and incompatible with the Christian theology I grew up with."
Then the Christian theology you grew up with has very little to do with the Bible, at least on the subject of war.
You may want to reinvestigate the doctrines of war in the Bible if you got the impression that it is somehow morally wrong to defend your country or fight in a war.
It is missing the pool of blood where one of the criminals decided to run from the police and gets shot in the leg, causing a permanent limp. It is also missing the brief but satisfying scene where the remaining criminal learns to actually enjoy "tossing salad."
Few things are as infuriating as a thief. I only wish that more of them would be killed in the process of stealing things and that is was still legal to hang their bodies from the buildings they were caught stealing from.
Youre right. I thought penultimate meant one that came just before, ie. it came just previous to the 1960's references, however it means second to last if I am reading the definiton correctly. Context clues for the loss!
I had to read the summary a couple of times before I could figure out the headline. I kept thinking "Who the hell is Bill Fossett and why are there so many prepositions and not a single verb here?"
"Governments do not exist to create criminals. Governments exist to create a smooth living environment that allows large groups of people to interact in an easy and predictable fashion"
WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING?
Seriously.
The first statement may not be false, but it does not mean the second statement is true by a long shot. College level courses on the theory of government notwithstanding the actual application and purpose of government is as varied as the onehundredandninteyfiveish countries we have on earth. However, I would posit that all governments exist first and foremost for their own self preservation and secondly for their own increase. A side effect or necessary condition of the first two may be the ease of interaction you subscribe to. Unfortunately, many nations in the past (and present!) have eschewed this third condition to ensure the first two. This ultimately results in suffering for the people of the nation; but we are talking about the government itself, not the people.
Actually, the point of the story is not based on a literal interpretation of leaders trying to consciously whittle away freedom from the people. IMHO, Rand was expressing a thought, in personified form, that people might be able to recognise as a groupthink principle, heretofore unspoken, but extant at an unconscious or innate level in all government. In other words, no one in government will ever blatantly say that or even think that, but everyone in governemnt, taken together, will eventually act like that. I gleaned from it that people need to be suspicious of even government's basic motivation to "take care of" the people it governs because every motive may be either tainted from the start or perverted to work against the governed.
For instance, "think of the children" or the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror" criminalize all sorts of rational behavior. The payoff to the government is dubious and the problems that are created for the population are huge. Tell me, are these actions the result of a government trying to make things go smoothly or are they easier to rationalize if you take a different tack with respect to the purpose of governemnt?
Rand might not be 100% right, but her ideas about the slippery nature of government make alot more sense to me than saying that government exists solely for the reasons you state. There are too many examples of exploitation of the people by their governments for the government's benefit (dictators to opression to inequality to slavery ad nauseum) to think that your model is absolutely correct.
Of course there is another explanation that makes us both right. Since government's recourse against the governed is limited to punishemts under law, creating a society where anyone is subject to government penalties at just about any time might be the only way for a sufficiently large governemnt to ensure the ease of interaction and smooth living environment you speak of. Think about it.
You do remember the part about the whole town getting roasted by a fire-breathing dragon, right? Nothing as light hearted as the screams of burning women and children, aye? If you missed that part maybe you also forgot about the massive 5-army battle at the end of the book complete with hideous, unnatural creatures from the underregions of the world.
It may have been written as a children's book, but it doesn't read like one if you fill in the blanks in the narrative. There are definitely some very adult themes there.
Let's be realistic. Your interpretation of an english translation of a thousands of years old document is not sufficient to criticise it. From your description of "floodgates" it is obvious you read some paraphrased and bastardized english translation and took that as the autograph. In addition, the creation story is a bit more complex and suprising than you are presenting it to be, though you would know that if you had an inkling if what the original languages state about it. Therefore you are either being deliberately misleading or you don't posess authoratative knowledge on this subject. Either way your ability to sit in jugement of the text's content is completely compromised.
"Either its all true or its all not and you believe it or you don't."
However, what was never said can never be true or false. What I mean is many of the things people take issue with in the bible do not actually exist therein. They are products of misinformation, mistranslation, or misunderstanding. No offence, but you seem to have fallen prey to these pitfalls yourself. Don't feel lonely though, many of the fundamentalist people you respect so much believe in things that do not exist in the original manuscripts of the bible.
As for someone lying to you, there is no better way to avoid this than by going directly to the source. Fortunately, the bible is the most prolific ancient manuscript humanity has, easily dwarfing the other ancient documents we revere many hundreds of times to one in volume of manuscript evidence. Also, the languages it was written in are constantly under the scrutiny of scholars the world over and have been for hundreds of years. In short, there is no shortage of easy to access authoratative information about the bible. In addition you can even see the manuscripts themselves, whether scanned digitally or in person, and judge for yourself what the words are and therefore mean.
The texts that religions are based on do not use the claim "God did it" as an end to a conversation or as the answer to a scientific question. Generally, people making that statement as a catch all for the unknown have been using religion to control people rather than to free them. Condemning all religions on this basis is like condemning all scientists because of "cold fusion."
"I'm sure Bush slept very well at night after vetoing SCHIP..."
What Bush vetoed was not SCHIP. It was an expansion of the SCHIP program which would have changed the original scope and intent of the SCHIP program. The SCHIP program is currently working as it has for over 10 years, despite political efforts to use it to advance unrelated agends.
Saying he vetoed it is either wrong or a lie, pick your poison. See HR 3584 for confirmation.
I posit that morality extends not only to the action in question, but also to the intentions, motivations, frame of reference, personal history, and perception of the individuals taking the action.
Therefore, it may be possible to have a set of moral rules and precepts that can give a 100% right and wrong determination but that is impossible to check objectively due to the unobservability of relevant facts. Since many of the determining factors of the interaction inhabit the consciousness of the individuals taking the actions they are unable to be properly evaluated from outside. The difficulty of external judgement comes because we cannot know all the antecedents and circumstances involved, and because those observing will have their own internal issuse that can color even unambiguous observations.
In adition, it is obviously difficult as an individual to properly evaluate yourself in-situ due to the emotional context of many moral dilemas. For example, just imagine the subconscious and conscious parts of yourself in a battle royale where self interest, ingrained decorum, religious/morality influenced dogma, and emotional satisfaction vie for control. In that context it will be difficult to self diagnose the absolute moral value of your actions or and the resul is usually to assign moral value somewhat arbitrarily. However, this still does not preclude the existence of absolute morality.
In short, I argue there is ambiguity in morality only because of the inability of humans to properly observe and catalogue all of the relevant parts involved in a moral or immoral act. *BAD ANALOGY WARNING* Just as our inability to observe the back of our head without a reflective surface does not cause the back of our heads to cease to exist, not knowing the all the absolute facts does not change the absolute morality of an act.
Any illegal drug I can think of is abused when you use it.
Pot is chopped up, rolled tightly, and then burned. Crack gets cooked on a stove, and then burned. Heroin is held over a flame until it bubbles. And have you seen what they do to cocaine? HAVE YOU! Razor blades man, razor blades.
Actually I think "abuse" is too lenient a term. I prefer to call it "torture." Yeah, drug torture has a much better ring to it. Won't someone think of the drugs?
As a non-denominational orthodox Christian I find what is reported to have happened to that girl in the linked story unconscionable. A Christian is tasked to gain converts by the example of their lives. Furthermore, their ability to lead an exemplary life is due to their dedication to the principles of the Bible. In this respect it is not only commanded, (love they neighbor, love thy enemy) but also a result of the Christian's drive to become Christ-like. Christians are allowed to make mistakes and have missteps, but a concerted alienation of someone who is different makes me question the ability of those people to understand the book they profess to believe in.
You state these Christians have a "burning haterd" for atheists. If this is the case they are probably not Christians at all. They may have ursurped the authority and stature of the Bible and used it to convey a message of their own devising, but that doesn't make them Christian. Quite frankly, it makes them heretics.
Even more funny is the Bible does not say that suffering comes from God. Only people with an axe to grind and poor reading skills say this. The Bible's stance is that suffering proceeds from human free will, the fact that an imperfect ruler is governing the earth, and the angelic conflict.
In the terms of Christianity, suffering is sometimes good and sometimes bad. The mental attitude toward divine authority determines the outcome of suffering. In essence there are laws that govern existence. Violating them with your free will results in suffering. If you recognize the suffering as necessary and resultant from your own misdeeds you can learn from it. If you continually place blame elsewhere your suffering will give no edification and even result in more suffering.
If you are a student of the path of Buddha and you study the bible (and not the misinformation that most people toss around) you will notice more similarities than you will probably find comfortable.
The poster you recriminate has a point, no pun intended. The number of points a dart can intersect a dart board is finite but very large. The reason is because the tip of a dart may be infinitessimal but is still finite.
The excercise in logic fails because it is based on flawed assumptions. This is similar to the old adage about the flea. Each hop he jumps half the distance to the dog, and thus never actually reaches it. This illustration and the Adams illustration are silly because the wonderful world of mathematics has more operands than the divisor. Next time...try subtraction.
What goober rated you offtopic? Very relevant remarks IMHO.
Breaking the book into 2 or 3 movies might work with the right acting. Adding in Dune Messiah might make a beeter story arc for the screen too, though I might be expecting a bit much from movie audiences there.
Personally I would welcome a new movie that stayed withing the original boundaries of the book. Anything to overwrite the creative license abominations the first movie seared into my memory.
"More or less, guys who like you do stuff for you." "...being nice / doing your bidding."
Alpha males that consider the female below them will not do anything for them. The alphas will also not react to the female's attempts to lure the male through flirting. They will not change their behavior or act surpised when the female acts interested. They will not become excited either, regardless of the particular female's physical attributes or appearence. The female, in return, will perceive the alpha as more desirable due to the apparent position of the alpha.
You misunderstand the game. Men send signals too. If you are a pleaser you will get nothing. You will be used for what you give and not what you have (intrinsically). If you treat the woman like she is an equal, or even a tad beneath you, your results will be better. Putting a woman on a pedestal just lets her see the field better.
Of course this all changes when you get married.:)
Something you will never hear unless it is in a movie: "I really enjoy your company and I want to get to know you better. I don't know you well enough yet to know if we have what it takes for something more, but I would like it if we got together again sometime. What do you think?"
Plain talk like that got me fucked up stares when I was younger. Girls apparently didn't want to speak realistically about their feelings. Talk about a turn off. That, and I couldn't handle the "I'm into you but I want to keep you guessing" game very well. So, I married my stalker.
By the way, you wanna talk about good relations? Stalkers are the way to go. There is very little to misinterpret. Unambiguous communication in every look, baby. Sexual signals broadcast like a bull horn. Seventeen years of marital bliss later and she is still stalkimg me.
Additionally, you don't want damaged goods like the girls you mention. Women in particular have the problem of expecting men to be mind readers once they are in a relationship. Can you imagine if you lucked into banging a girl whose initial signal was glancing at you across a crowded room? The rest of the relationship would be you having to defend yourself because you didn't KNOW she was ready to go home by the way she was blinking.
For years my adage has been "learning curve==lost productivity." If it isn't broken and/or the upgrade is not absolutely necessary, don't do it. Chances are the shiny new features are't all they cracked up to be.
Reading comprehension is not your strong point, is it Lars? Nowhere do I say that. How you could get that from what I wrote makes me wonder if communication with you is even possible.
The Old Testament was written, in large, by, for, and about Jews. There were no Christians at the time. They didn't exist until much, much later. In addition, what you see written there has a specific scope in application with regard to time and the people involved. It is not a standing order.
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I thought I was done on this thread, but seeing your posts accusing me of haughtiness, calling people ignorant, and saying that I said things I did not (dismissed out of hand?) I will respond in the only way I know how.
Point to one scripture of the Bible (new or old testament) that specifically prohibits military service. As you said, you need to back up what you say, so where is the proof you are basing your opinions on?
I can save you a huge volume of time and effort. It's not in there. Careful what you take from your own mind and place in the context of the bible. Saying scripture is "complex" when it is transparent is either an attempt to insert your own ideas (legalism) or an admission of lack of understanding.
I understand your point about making a case for myself, however I am firmly of the opinion that you are your best teacher and that knowledge won from your own labors is retained longer and more intimately known.
In addition, just quoting english scriptures to people will not provide them with the interlocking theological framework and categorical reinforcement necessary to understand and retain the doctrine. Nor does knowing a scripture or two that seems to prove your point make your point valid doctrine.
I am sorry if my brevity was taken for haughtiness, but the bible makes its own case. It is your responsibility to learn it. All I was recomending was taking another look at the facts of the Bible. I probably should have encouraged him to do as I have done and learn some Greek and Hebrew, study systematic theology, and get a pastor who is a scholar first and a fundraiser last. But hey, I ain't trying to run someone's life here, just make a simple recomendation, ya know?
Just some food for thought: If you are wagering your eternal salvation on a book, you might want to know what is in that book. Taking someone else's word for it without intense self study and verification is just asking for trouble. Too many teachers and "believers" ransack the scriptures in an attempt to find substantiation for their worldly preconceived beliefs for you to not be wary when listening to someone's interpretation.
"This is a morally dubious proposition and incompatible with the Christian theology I grew up with."
Then the Christian theology you grew up with has very little to do with the Bible, at least on the subject of war.
You may want to reinvestigate the doctrines of war in the Bible if you got the impression that it is somehow morally wrong to defend your country or fight in a war.
Well not all the elements.
It is missing the pool of blood where one of the criminals decided to run from the police and gets shot in the leg, causing a permanent limp. It is also missing the brief but satisfying scene where the remaining criminal learns to actually enjoy "tossing salad."
Few things are as infuriating as a thief. I only wish that more of them would be killed in the process of stealing things and that is was still legal to hang their bodies from the buildings they were caught stealing from.
Youre right. I thought penultimate meant one that came just before, ie. it came just previous to the 1960's references, however it means second to last if I am reading the definiton correctly. Context clues for the loss!
"just grab an old copy of Popular Science from the 1960's."
Try `Starship Troopers' by Heinlein, 1959, for prior art and the penultimate description of an armored exoskeleton.
I had to read the summary a couple of times before I could figure out the headline. I kept thinking "Who the hell is Bill Fossett and why are there so many prepositions and not a single verb here?"
"Governments do not exist to create criminals. Governments exist to create a smooth living environment that allows large groups of people to interact in an easy and predictable fashion"
WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING?
Seriously.
The first statement may not be false, but it does not mean the second statement is true by a long shot. College level courses on the theory of government notwithstanding the actual application and purpose of government is as varied as the onehundredandninteyfiveish countries we have on earth. However, I would posit that all governments exist first and foremost for their own self preservation and secondly for their own increase. A side effect or necessary condition of the first two may be the ease of interaction you subscribe to. Unfortunately, many nations in the past (and present!) have eschewed this third condition to ensure the first two. This ultimately results in suffering for the people of the nation; but we are talking about the government itself, not the people.
Actually, the point of the story is not based on a literal interpretation of leaders trying to consciously whittle away freedom from the people. IMHO, Rand was expressing a thought, in personified form, that people might be able to recognise as a groupthink principle, heretofore unspoken, but extant at an unconscious or innate level in all government. In other words, no one in government will ever blatantly say that or even think that, but everyone in governemnt, taken together, will eventually act like that. I gleaned from it that people need to be suspicious of even government's basic motivation to "take care of" the people it governs because every motive may be either tainted from the start or perverted to work against the governed.
For instance, "think of the children" or the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror" criminalize all sorts of rational behavior. The payoff to the government is dubious and the problems that are created for the population are huge. Tell me, are these actions the result of a government trying to make things go smoothly or are they easier to rationalize if you take a different tack with respect to the purpose of governemnt?
Rand might not be 100% right, but her ideas about the slippery nature of government make alot more sense to me than saying that government exists solely for the reasons you state. There are too many examples of exploitation of the people by their governments for the government's benefit (dictators to opression to inequality to slavery ad nauseum) to think that your model is absolutely correct.
Of course there is another explanation that makes us both right. Since government's recourse against the governed is limited to punishemts under law, creating a society where anyone is subject to government penalties at just about any time might be the only way for a sufficiently large governemnt to ensure the ease of interaction and smooth living environment you speak of. Think about it.
You do remember the part about the whole town getting roasted by a fire-breathing dragon, right? Nothing as light hearted as the screams of burning women and children, aye? If you missed that part maybe you also forgot about the massive 5-army battle at the end of the book complete with hideous, unnatural creatures from the underregions of the world.
It may have been written as a children's book, but it doesn't read like one if you fill in the blanks in the narrative. There are definitely some very adult themes there.
Let's be realistic. Your interpretation of an english translation of a thousands of years old document is not sufficient to criticise it. From your description of "floodgates" it is obvious you read some paraphrased and bastardized english translation and took that as the autograph. In addition, the creation story is a bit more complex and suprising than you are presenting it to be, though you would know that if you had an inkling if what the original languages state about it. Therefore you are either being deliberately misleading or you don't posess authoratative knowledge on this subject. Either way your ability to sit in jugement of the text's content is completely compromised.
"Either its all true or its all not and you believe it or you don't."
However, what was never said can never be true or false. What I mean is many of the things people take issue with in the bible do not actually exist therein. They are products of misinformation, mistranslation, or misunderstanding. No offence, but you seem to have fallen prey to these pitfalls yourself. Don't feel lonely though, many of the fundamentalist people you respect so much believe in things that do not exist in the original manuscripts of the bible.
As for someone lying to you, there is no better way to avoid this than by going directly to the source. Fortunately, the bible is the most prolific ancient manuscript humanity has, easily dwarfing the other ancient documents we revere many hundreds of times to one in volume of manuscript evidence. Also, the languages it was written in are constantly under the scrutiny of scholars the world over and have been for hundreds of years. In short, there is no shortage of easy to access authoratative information about the bible. In addition you can even see the manuscripts themselves, whether scanned digitally or in person, and judge for yourself what the words are and therefore mean.
The texts that religions are based on do not use the claim "God did it" as an end to a conversation or as the answer to a scientific question. Generally, people making that statement as a catch all for the unknown have been using religion to control people rather than to free them. Condemning all religions on this basis is like condemning all scientists because of "cold fusion."
"Actually, it's the believable but false information that's much more insidious and dangerous."
Oh, right. And you expect me to just believe that?
"For Pete's sake there are plenty of idiots who believe Bush planned 9/11."
/. with that comment.
Careful. You just insulted half of
"I'm sure Bush slept very well at night after vetoing SCHIP..."
What Bush vetoed was not SCHIP. It was an expansion of the SCHIP program which would have changed the original scope and intent of the SCHIP program. The SCHIP program is currently working as it has for over 10 years, despite political efforts to use it to advance unrelated agends.
Saying he vetoed it is either wrong or a lie, pick your poison. See HR 3584 for confirmation.
I posit that morality extends not only to the action in question, but also to the intentions, motivations, frame of reference, personal history, and perception of the individuals taking the action.
Therefore, it may be possible to have a set of moral rules and precepts that can give a 100% right and wrong determination but that is impossible to check objectively due to the unobservability of relevant facts. Since many of the determining factors of the interaction inhabit the consciousness of the individuals taking the actions they are unable to be properly evaluated from outside. The difficulty of external judgement comes because we cannot know all the antecedents and circumstances involved, and because those observing will have their own internal issuse that can color even unambiguous observations.
In adition, it is obviously difficult as an individual to properly evaluate yourself in-situ due to the emotional context of many moral dilemas. For example, just imagine the subconscious and conscious parts of yourself in a battle royale where self interest, ingrained decorum, religious/morality influenced dogma, and emotional satisfaction vie for control. In that context it will be difficult to self diagnose the absolute moral value of your actions or and the resul is usually to assign moral value somewhat arbitrarily. However, this still does not preclude the existence of absolute morality.
In short, I argue there is ambiguity in morality only because of the inability of humans to properly observe and catalogue all of the relevant parts involved in a moral or immoral act. *BAD ANALOGY WARNING* Just as our inability to observe the back of our head without a reflective surface does not cause the back of our heads to cease to exist, not knowing the all the absolute facts does not change the absolute morality of an act.
Any illegal drug I can think of is abused when you use it.
Pot is chopped up, rolled tightly, and then burned. Crack gets cooked on a stove, and then burned. Heroin is held over a flame until it bubbles. And have you seen what they do to cocaine? HAVE YOU! Razor blades man, razor blades.
Actually I think "abuse" is too lenient a term. I prefer to call it "torture." Yeah, drug torture has a much better ring to it. Won't someone think of the drugs?
As a non-denominational orthodox Christian I find what is reported to have happened to that girl in the linked story unconscionable. A Christian is tasked to gain converts by the example of their lives. Furthermore, their ability to lead an exemplary life is due to their dedication to the principles of the Bible. In this respect it is not only commanded, (love they neighbor, love thy enemy) but also a result of the Christian's drive to become Christ-like. Christians are allowed to make mistakes and have missteps, but a concerted alienation of someone who is different makes me question the ability of those people to understand the book they profess to believe in.
You state these Christians have a "burning haterd" for atheists. If this is the case they are probably not Christians at all. They may have ursurped the authority and stature of the Bible and used it to convey a message of their own devising, but that doesn't make them Christian. Quite frankly, it makes them heretics.
Even more funny is the Bible does not say that suffering comes from God. Only people with an axe to grind and poor reading skills say this. The Bible's stance is that suffering proceeds from human free will, the fact that an imperfect ruler is governing the earth, and the angelic conflict.
In the terms of Christianity, suffering is sometimes good and sometimes bad. The mental attitude toward divine authority determines the outcome of suffering. In essence there are laws that govern existence. Violating them with your free will results in suffering. If you recognize the suffering as necessary and resultant from your own misdeeds you can learn from it. If you continually place blame elsewhere your suffering will give no edification and even result in more suffering.
If you are a student of the path of Buddha and you study the bible (and not the misinformation that most people toss around) you will notice more similarities than you will probably find comfortable.
The poster you recriminate has a point, no pun intended. The number of points a dart can intersect a dart board is finite but very large. The reason is because the tip of a dart may be infinitessimal but is still finite.
The excercise in logic fails because it is based on flawed assumptions. This is similar to the old adage about the flea. Each hop he jumps half the distance to the dog, and thus never actually reaches it. This illustration and the Adams illustration are silly because the wonderful world of mathematics has more operands than the divisor. Next time...try subtraction.
What goober rated you offtopic? Very relevant remarks IMHO.
Breaking the book into 2 or 3 movies might work with the right acting. Adding in Dune Messiah might make a beeter story arc for the screen too, though I might be expecting a bit much from movie audiences there.
Personally I would welcome a new movie that stayed withing the original boundaries of the book. Anything to overwrite the creative license abominations the first movie seared into my memory.
Two words: Honored Matres.
Who the hell wouldn't want to see female killing machines fuck the self control out of people?
"More or less, guys who like you do stuff for you." "...being nice / doing your bidding."
:)
Alpha males that consider the female below them will not do anything for them. The alphas will also not react to the female's attempts to lure the male through flirting. They will not change their behavior or act surpised when the female acts interested. They will not become excited either, regardless of the particular female's physical attributes or appearence. The female, in return, will perceive the alpha as more desirable due to the apparent position of the alpha.
You misunderstand the game. Men send signals too. If you are a pleaser you will get nothing. You will be used for what you give and not what you have (intrinsically). If you treat the woman like she is an equal, or even a tad beneath you, your results will be better. Putting a woman on a pedestal just lets her see the field better.
Of course this all changes when you get married.
Something you will never hear unless it is in a movie: "I really enjoy your company and I want to get to know you better. I don't know you well enough yet to know if we have what it takes for something more, but I would like it if we got together again sometime. What do you think?"
Plain talk like that got me fucked up stares when I was younger. Girls apparently didn't want to speak realistically about their feelings. Talk about a turn off. That, and I couldn't handle the "I'm into you but I want to keep you guessing" game very well. So, I married my stalker.
By the way, you wanna talk about good relations? Stalkers are the way to go. There is very little to misinterpret. Unambiguous communication in every look, baby. Sexual signals broadcast like a bull horn. Seventeen years of marital bliss later and she is still stalkimg me.
Additionally, you don't want damaged goods like the girls you mention. Women in particular have the problem of expecting men to be mind readers once they are in a relationship. Can you imagine if you lucked into banging a girl whose initial signal was glancing at you across a crowded room? The rest of the relationship would be you having to defend yourself because you didn't KNOW she was ready to go home by the way she was blinking.
For years my adage has been "learning curve==lost productivity." If it isn't broken and/or the upgrade is not absolutely necessary, don't do it. Chances are the shiny new features are't all they cracked up to be.
Reading comprehension is not your strong point, is it Lars? Nowhere do I say that. How you could get that from what I wrote makes me wonder if communication with you is even possible.
The Old Testament was written, in large, by, for, and about Jews. There were no Christians at the time. They didn't exist until much, much later. In addition, what you see written there has a specific scope in application with regard to time and the people involved. It is not a standing order.