Pro-Choice = Doesn't exactly agree with abortion, may even hate it, but believes that the woman has the right to choose, and that she'll have to deal with the consequences. May even be against the death penalty and warfare.
Anti-Abortion = Hates abortion, but most seem to have no qualms killing people after they grow up to be criminals, and no qualms bombing pregnant Iraqi women. Only quotes "Thou Shalt Not Kill" when it suits them best. Some have no problems killing to further their aims.'
I'm not saying all Anti-Abortionists are like what I've mentioned, but you're going to get smacked upside the head if you try to paint this side as completely good and unhypocritical.
>That's how it maintains is timelessness and how it can apply to each human being who has accepted it's teachings. Frankly, it's absolute genius >
>from start to finish.
Does that include the hard core pornography in the Song of Solomon? (Read all of it again if you don't believe me) Or Gods rather bipolar behavior during the 40 Years Exile in the desert? Or PI being equal to 3? (I Kings 7:23, as it describes Solomons altar.) Don't believe me? Look it all up again. I suggest you try reading the Skeptics Anotated Bible sometime.
I would be very hard pressed to call the Bible "absolute genius" from start to finish. It is critically flawed in many places, but at least you're willing to admit that the Bible was INTENDED to be read and interperated as a metephorical document. A LOT of people would nail you to the wall for that.
The Bible, at it's basest moral core, doesn't really say anything new that other groups don't already say. Stripped of it's "religion-specific" aspects, the Ten Commandments are no different from most other religions. It's just that Christianity is relatively unique in its "My Way, or the Long, Painful Highway Of Eternal Damnation, so nyah nyah nyah!" approach. I just have real problems with the whole "One Truth Faith" thing. I think it's petty and childish to think that God is so unenlightened, he can't figure out that the punishment should fit the crime. Sorry, I don't care what you think, but even Hitler himself doesn't deserve to burn in Hell _forever_. There has to be justice sooner or later, even if that justice is just Death.
Wow...really went off on a tangent there...sorry.
>I personally think there is plenty of room in Genesis 1 to accomodate evolution and you should >read it again to see for yourself.
Ooookay. Just read it again. Gen 1:1 to 2:3 seems to contradict each other. Did Man come before the animals? Or did the animals come first. According to Genesis, both! It's hard to draw metephorical inferences from that.
>That is the same exact things evolutionists have done. They have assumed what the big picture looks like and when any new data comes along, the parts of the picture are rearranged to look as >close as possible to that big picture.
Well no..not exactly. What you fail to realize is the difference between Science and Faith. Creation "Science" takes facts, and attempts to twist and distort them to fit an Immutible Big Picture That Cannot Ever Change. Science finds new things, and if the new things are strong enough, the Big Picture O' Science can and has in the past been completely and utterly changed.
For instance, take whats happened in the last few hundred years. People used to believe that the World was flat, that the Sun revolved around the Earth, that all the planets and moons were perfectly smoothe, that diseaes were caused by demons, and that Classical Physics could describe all physical phenomena in the world, etc etc. Compare the Scientific "Big Picture O' The World" back in 1700 with the "Big Picture" today, and you'll find two VERY VERY different things. Biblical Creation hasn't changed at all during that time. And there is the big difference. Science thrives on doubt and change. Religion abhors these things. Someone on this forum said it best: You don't win a Nobel Prize for reinforcing the status quo.
>Both schools of thought are faith based, as a >result.
Well, to a certain extent, perhaps, except that the folks who espouse Literal Biblical Creation can't really put a good argument together to save their lives. They resorted to faking computer models, disortion of many scientific facts, and propeganda. (Have you read some of those Chick Tracts? Jack T. seriously needs to deal with some projection issues.) Creation "Scientists" will _always_ be slaves to their Bible. A GOOD Scientist wont be a slave to the status quo. Even *I* will admit, however, that some scientists get zealous to the point where it becomes like a religion for them as well. These people usually go the way of the dinosar, sooner or later. Even Albert Einstein had problems beliving in Quantum Mechanics.
So frankly, no...I think in this case, Biblical Creationism and Evolution are like oil and water. Now...as I said before...Intelligent Design...THAT I can believe. God as the Ultimate Scientist....makes sense to me. God as a freaky Bipolor guy who gets off on making perfectly good and decent people suffer FOREVER...I just could never ever have that kind of faith, and if that condemns me to Hell, then I guess thats my Karma. So much for the illusion of Free Will.
Oooookay. This is probably troll bait anyhow....but once again, this is highly specious reasoning. You are taking items recounted in a Faith based work and present them as hard fact. Do I even need to bother explaining how wrong this is? I think we've managed to demonstrate that you can't take the Bible literally without getting into that sort of mindset that keeps people in Scientology, even after OT III.
>The Bible DOESN'T have all the "answers" concerning creation. The book of Genesis details God's revelation of himself to man. He covers the extreme and intense process of creation in one chapter. You showed your true colors when you revealed that you wouldn't listen to any "scientist" who wasn't Christian. It's one thing to interpret things for yourself, but why such the animosity towards Christianity?
>
Gasp! Quiet when you say such things *heh* Well, my apologies. I have "issues" with Fundamentalist Christians, and others who think the Bible is infallible and unquestionable. I have problems with Fundamentalism in general, but I despise Fundamentalist Monotheism, for surely it is one of the most insideous and destructive memes mankind has ever been plagued with. You seem to be willing to let people think for themselves, but I have to wonder if you are willing to let people interperate the Bible and then reject it for themselves, and accept and be happy with the reasoning.
And what I said was that I had trouble taking Creation "Scientists" seriously because few to none were not Christian. Like it's not enough to accept Intelligent Design, it HAS to be JUST like the Bible said. That's not Science, that's Blind Faith, and I hate Fundamentalists who try to sabotage and abuse Science. I've seen a lot of their so called "evidence" and it is some of the most specious, illogical bullshit it's ever been my misfortune to read.
>Yes, without question, Orthodox Jews follow the Bible to a far more degree than Christian churches. Of course, they don't follow the New Testament, which is the most important part of the Christian church. Christian churches say that the New Testament law "overrides" Levitical law, but that doesn't discount it as having no modern >application.
Uhhhhhm...didn't the Big J himself say "I come not to replace the Old Law, but to Fufil it"? Since Jesus was a nice Jewish boy, and said this, doesn't it mean that it sounds like he still wanted people to keep kosher? Or did everyone reject it because Paul did? It sounds like most so called Christians are actually Paulites. Frankly, I'm still convinced Saul of Tarsus never converted, and just found a really clever way to fuck up a rather troublesome cult of Judaism.
>Did you ever think of why there were such strict laws concerning milk and meat? I am pretty sure that cooking methods weren't too good back then and I am almost certain they weren't homogenizing milk. By making cloth of one fabric, you maintain the consistency and strength of the fabric. With something like Levitical law, it is CRITICAL to consider the circumstances under which the laws >were applied.
Gee, thanks for the news flash. Yes, I know all about the practical reasons that Levitacus and Numbers were laid down. Don't eat pigs or you get tricanosis. The laws about men sleeping with men was to keep them away from temple prostitues, since they needed all the breeding material they could get. The line about "It is abomination" was added by King James. (Ie It was never in the original texts.) A lot of it also had to do with maintaining ethnic and cultural purity at a time when the Jews were surrounded by hostile, foriegn people. Believe me when I say I've heard this crap a whole bunch of times.
My point, however, is that if these were the laws that Jesus followed, and they were mostly for survival, as well as Faith, why the hell would Jesus have invalidated them when you STILL didn't homogenize milk, and could still easily get parasites from pork? I just dont buy Jesus coming in and chucking out the Tanach. I think most Bible-Thumping Christians just chuck out the parts they find inconvenient and keep the parts that support whatever arrogant viewpoint they espouse. Like how back in the days of Slavery, Southerners used the scene between Noah and his Son to justify slavery (The one where Noah gets drunk and naked, his son taunts him, and Noah says that the cast out sons descendants will be slaves to the children of the other two sons.)
As for what I said in Levitacus...I'll repeat the reply that was already put in by another poster:
Leviticus 11:20-23 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you...Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
I would think that "All fowls that creep, going on all four" would refer to four-legged birds. It says all flying and creeping things with four feet. So name me a flying, creeping thing with four feet?
>Archaeologists found evidence of a great flood a few years ago when it was estimated that the Mediterranean Sea broke a natural damn and flooded into the Sea to the East of Mesopotamia. Could this be evidence of the great flood that covered all of the earth? What exactly is "all of >the earth"?
Apparently it's the flood plains around the Mediterranian, up to but not including Egypt. In the grand scheme of things, this is a large, but relatively localized event. Like I said, there is no proof that there was one, great, WORLDWIDE flood...a time where the entire world was flooded at the same time. The Creation "Scientists" can fake as many computer models as they like.
>As far as inbreeding goes, genetic scientists confirmed that all human beings came from a pair around a quarter million years ago (using modern estimations of previous human life expectancy) in sub-Saharan Africa. The ill effects of in-breeding go away after several generations of in-breeding, which is why Dogs and Cats can do it >without any problem.
Mmmmmmm....noooo. I'm not going to buy that without some solid academic proof. Humans are NOT dogs and cats. Dogs and Cats have FAR FAR greater genetic plasticity in their chromosomes than humans. I refuse to believe that the entire human species arose from just one pair. Although....it might explain what goes on in some places down south *heh*
So, I think I'm going to kick it out with a little Old Skewl MC Hawking and close with:
"Fuck the Damn Creationists
They're all a bunch of bitches
Everytime I think of them
My trigger finger itches"
I believe he's refering to Leviticus, where it refers to insects having four legs, bats being birds, as well as there being four legged birds (seen any lately?), and all sorts of crazy crap (PI being 3, and so on.)
BTW, Leviticus also says it's bad to plant gardens, wear blended fabrics, and eat meat and milk together. It also allows for parents to sell their children into slavery, or stone people for working on the Sabbath. Honestly, the way I see it, the ultra orthadox Jews follow the Bible far more literally than any Fundamentalist Christian *I'VE* ever met.
>A great flood is mentioned among many many >different societies. Even aboriginal culture >made reference to an incredible, ancient flood.
Yes, but there's no evidence to support one Great Big WorldWide Flood that happened at precisely the same time. It's a well-known fact that at the end of the Ice Age, (10K years ago) glacial dams would routinely break, releasing megatons of fresh water into the ocean, raising the sea level a few feet. It's also known that the Asia Minor plains were very suceptible to flooding around that time. It's probably the first collective memories of these floods that made their way into the Gilgemesh epics, and then later into stories like the Bible.
However, according to Biblical "Scientists" the Great Flood was happening at the same time that the Egyptian Empire was at it's zenith. People apparently forgot to tell them there was a cataclysm scheduled, because it just plumb missed them, and the Egyptians don't make any records of any Great Flood happening at that time. And these are people who had to deal with river floods almost every year.
Maybe Ra and Yahweh cut a deal? Plus, I really have trouble with the whole Noah thing. It's really difficult (read: impossible in most cases) to repopulate entire species from only one mated pair. I know all hampsters in pet shops apparently come from one female found in Siberia in 1911, but it's the higher animals that really suffer from inbreeding. Just ask people trying to breed Pandas how difficult this all is.
>You should really read and attempt to interpret >the Bible for yourself. I'll pray for you.
Uh..I have. I've decided to reject it as a literal document written by God. Did you REALLY want me to interpret the Bible for myself, or was that just said in the hopes I'd think like you?
Frankly, I have no problems beliving in Intelligent Design. I see spooky shit like Quantum Mechanics, and can see God in the details. I have no problems beliving that some higher power went and made the universe and set things in motion. If you ran up to me, panting, out of breath, and proclaimed that a "A Higher Power set everything into motion billions of years ago!" I would say "Who the fuck are you?" and then "Well, that makes sense to me."
What I DO have problems beliving is that Christianity has all the answers on Creation. I'd have a much easier time giving Creation "Scientists" their due if any of them weren't rabidly Christian. I've yet to meet a Creation "Scientist" that was of another religion. (Hint, I mean JUDEO-Christian/Western Monotheistic, so don't go quoting Jewish and Moslem Creation "Scientists" to me.) Funny that.
And if the best answer someone can come up with is "Well, God put that there to decieve us/give us a false sense of history", or "Well, God put the whole inbreeding causes problems thing into us AFTER the Great Flood" then you should immediately disqualify yourself from the Rational Thought Olympics.
In the end, DS9 had some of the darkest and most dramatic episodes in the entire history of the franchise, especially in season six. "In The Pale Moon Light" and any episode with Section 32 in it comes to mind, and the Siege of AR-52(?) especially. It's like the writers finally got some ideas from B5 on how to do story arcs, and even managed to add their own original spin to it.
If you can ignore everything after the stupid little "Klingon-Federation Battle" story arc, you'll be in for a treat. The only exception to this is "The Visitor", which is DS9's answer to "The Inner Light." But the last three seasons are the only ones really worth a damn. Honestly, I can't see how people can say that DS9 sucked, given the high quality of work in the later part of the shows history.
Which is why it's so painful to see what they did with that last episode. Although the last five minutes were good...just barely redeeming the whole debacle.
Watching Voyager has been very....sad and painful. While it still manages to have an occasional bright spot, the series has lost "It", and I'm just glad that they are finally allowing it to limp off into the sunset, while we're still at the point where I'd rather watch a bad episode of Voyager than most anything else on prime-time TV. They will probably screw up the last episode in the same way they did for DS9 though. But, there is at least one "Good Way" they could wrap things up. My vision: in the last Episode, Voyager has to go through events that kill people (maybe even a principle actor or two.) and almost destroy the ship...but they make it home. The last scene is Voyager limping through the Sol system...pan up, and the crew are watching Earth through a staticy viewscreen. Music softly swells, and the very last scene is of other starships and shuttles drifting over to greet the returning ship.
It could end JUST like that, and be perfect. If they NEEDED additional closure, I say you just have a five minute scene: It's a year later. Voyager has been refitted, fixed and upgraded with all the new technologies aquired from the Delta Quadrant. Quantum Slipstream drive, etc etc....Voyager is supposed to be the first of a "new breed" of starship, like the Excelsior was going to be, and the Prometheus is. Janeway is still the captain, and she spends the next five minutes in her personal log just talking about what happened to the other crew members. Some would stay, some would leave. And life would go on.
I think that Series V is going to be the biggest flop in Star Trek history. I'll be surprised if it makes it past two or three seasons....and even then, the only thing carrying it along will be the "Trek" name. It strikes me as terribly uninteresting, and a digging up of old graves, due to lack of new material. A better series would have taken place just slightly ahead in the future. Maybe 10 or 20 years from the end of Voyager.
Or better yet, maybe we should just let the old girl rest a spell. We HAVE gotten 21 years worth of new material since TOS...time to let the field lay fallow for a bit.
Well, honestly, what do you expect from a guy who has never in his life left North America. No, I am NOT kidding. Before he became President, Bush went to Mexico a couple of times, and maybe Canada. IIRC, He STILL hasn't left the continent yet. It's not like he never had the opportunity..Obviously he never had the desire.
I find it really scary to think that the Leader of the Free World has absolutely no idea what "The Free World" is like; no first hand experience with it. Maybe that kind of shit was acceptable back in the "Guilded Age" of mediocre presidentry in the 1800's, but it's a real detriment now, if you ask me. Already, he's made several diplomatic faux pas because of his basic lack of "How The Countries Of The Rest Of the World" work.
Of course, I thought Gore was a real dickhead too.
"A bit wordy. The Golden Rule is actually a term borrowed from Confucianism, whose definition is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you""
Picky Bastard Mode v 2.5 Engage:
In Confucianism, this is actually known as the "Silver Rule" and it _actually_ states (albiet not literally, I'm sure): Do NOT do unto others what you would NOT want done to you.", the justification being that something you might like having done to you might not be what someone else would like.
Anyhow, you guys miss the point ENTIRELY. Just because the specific words "Seperation of Church and State" aren't in the constitution doesn't mean that the intent of the Founding Fathers isn't interperated by most as meaning that. Just like stuff like the Triune Godhead is "interperated" from the Bible. The Fundies LOVE to crow about how this is a Christian Nation, which is an incredible crock, considering most of the Founding Fathers were Deists who despised Fundamentalist Christianity.
And before someone says something inane like "But the money says "In God We Trust"!, the money also happens to say "New Secular Order". Don't believe me? Check out the back of a One Dollar Bill sometime. It's in vulgar Latin, right under the Pyramid.
Let's get one thing straight: People LOVE free goodies. The old timer Repulican who voted for Reagan because he wanted "smaller government" probably went to school on the GI Bill, got land from government assisted funding, draws Social Security and Medicare, etc etc...
Quoth Heinlein: TANSTAAFL. People say they want less taxes and smaller Government, but if we offered to give them true, Libertarian style "small Government", they'd flip out completely. They wouldn't be able to handle the freedom, and the RESPONSIBILITY that comes with it. People are too addicted to feeding from the Government Trough.
When Repulicans say they are in favor of "smaller government" it means they only want to cut stuff that Democrats like. And vice versa.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope, needs more refinement:
Pro-Choice = Doesn't exactly agree with abortion, may even hate it, but believes that the woman has the right to choose, and that she'll have to deal with the consequences. May even be against the death penalty and warfare.
Anti-Abortion = Hates abortion, but most seem to have no qualms killing people after they grow up to be criminals, and no qualms bombing pregnant Iraqi women. Only quotes "Thou Shalt Not Kill" when it suits them best. Some have no problems killing to further their aims.'
I'm not saying all Anti-Abortionists are like what I've mentioned, but you're going to get smacked upside the head if you try to paint this side as completely good and unhypocritical.
>That's how it maintains is timelessness and how it can apply to each human being who has accepted it's teachings. Frankly, it's absolute genius > >from start to finish.
Does that include the hard core pornography in the Song of Solomon? (Read all of it again if you don't believe me) Or Gods rather bipolar behavior during the 40 Years Exile in the desert? Or PI being equal to 3? (I Kings 7:23, as it describes Solomons altar.) Don't believe me? Look it all up again. I suggest you try reading the Skeptics Anotated Bible sometime. I would be very hard pressed to call the Bible "absolute genius" from start to finish. It is critically flawed in many places, but at least you're willing to admit that the Bible was INTENDED to be read and interperated as a metephorical document. A LOT of people would nail you to the wall for that.
The Bible, at it's basest moral core, doesn't really say anything new that other groups don't already say. Stripped of it's "religion-specific" aspects, the Ten Commandments are no different from most other religions. It's just that Christianity is relatively unique in its "My Way, or the Long, Painful Highway Of Eternal Damnation, so nyah nyah nyah!" approach. I just have real problems with the whole "One Truth Faith" thing. I think it's petty and childish to think that God is so unenlightened, he can't figure out that the punishment should fit the crime. Sorry, I don't care what you think, but even Hitler himself doesn't deserve to burn in Hell _forever_. There has to be justice sooner or later, even if that justice is just Death.
Wow...really went off on a tangent there...sorry.
>I personally think there is plenty of room in Genesis 1 to accomodate evolution and you should >read it again to see for yourself.
Ooookay. Just read it again. Gen 1:1 to 2:3 seems to contradict each other. Did Man come before the animals? Or did the animals come first. According to Genesis, both! It's hard to draw metephorical inferences from that.
>That is the same exact things evolutionists have done. They have assumed what the big picture looks like and when any new data comes along, the parts of the picture are rearranged to look as >close as possible to that big picture.
Well no..not exactly. What you fail to realize is the difference between Science and Faith. Creation "Science" takes facts, and attempts to twist and distort them to fit an Immutible Big Picture That Cannot Ever Change. Science finds new things, and if the new things are strong enough, the Big Picture O' Science can and has in the past been completely and utterly changed.
For instance, take whats happened in the last few hundred years. People used to believe that the World was flat, that the Sun revolved around the Earth, that all the planets and moons were perfectly smoothe, that diseaes were caused by demons, and that Classical Physics could describe all physical phenomena in the world, etc etc. Compare the Scientific "Big Picture O' The World" back in 1700 with the "Big Picture" today, and you'll find two VERY VERY different things. Biblical Creation hasn't changed at all during that time. And there is the big difference. Science thrives on doubt and change. Religion abhors these things. Someone on this forum said it best: You don't win a Nobel Prize for reinforcing the status quo.
>Both schools of thought are faith based, as a >result.
Well, to a certain extent, perhaps, except that the folks who espouse Literal Biblical Creation can't really put a good argument together to save their lives. They resorted to faking computer models, disortion of many scientific facts, and propeganda. (Have you read some of those Chick Tracts? Jack T. seriously needs to deal with some projection issues.) Creation "Scientists" will _always_ be slaves to their Bible. A GOOD Scientist wont be a slave to the status quo. Even *I* will admit, however, that some scientists get zealous to the point where it becomes like a religion for them as well. These people usually go the way of the dinosar, sooner or later. Even Albert Einstein had problems beliving in Quantum Mechanics.
So frankly, no...I think in this case, Biblical Creationism and Evolution are like oil and water. Now...as I said before...Intelligent Design...THAT I can believe. God as the Ultimate Scientist....makes sense to me. God as a freaky Bipolor guy who gets off on making perfectly good and decent people suffer FOREVER...I just could never ever have that kind of faith, and if that condemns me to Hell, then I guess thats my Karma. So much for the illusion of Free Will.
Oooookay. This is probably troll bait anyhow....but once again, this is highly specious reasoning. You are taking items recounted in a Faith based work and present them as hard fact. Do I even need to bother explaining how wrong this is? I think we've managed to demonstrate that you can't take the Bible literally without getting into that sort of mindset that keeps people in Scientology, even after OT III.
>The Bible DOESN'T have all the "answers" concerning creation. The book of Genesis details God's revelation of himself to man. He covers the extreme and intense process of creation in one chapter. You showed your true colors when you revealed that you wouldn't listen to any "scientist" who wasn't Christian. It's one thing to interpret things for yourself, but why such the animosity towards Christianity? >
Gasp! Quiet when you say such things *heh* Well, my apologies. I have "issues" with Fundamentalist Christians, and others who think the Bible is infallible and unquestionable. I have problems with Fundamentalism in general, but I despise Fundamentalist Monotheism, for surely it is one of the most insideous and destructive memes mankind has ever been plagued with. You seem to be willing to let people think for themselves, but I have to wonder if you are willing to let people interperate the Bible and then reject it for themselves, and accept and be happy with the reasoning.
And what I said was that I had trouble taking Creation "Scientists" seriously because few to none were not Christian. Like it's not enough to accept Intelligent Design, it HAS to be JUST like the Bible said. That's not Science, that's Blind Faith, and I hate Fundamentalists who try to sabotage and abuse Science. I've seen a lot of their so called "evidence" and it is some of the most specious, illogical bullshit it's ever been my misfortune to read.
>Yes, without question, Orthodox Jews follow the Bible to a far more degree than Christian churches. Of course, they don't follow the New Testament, which is the most important part of the Christian church. Christian churches say that the New Testament law "overrides" Levitical law, but that doesn't discount it as having no modern >application.
Uhhhhhm...didn't the Big J himself say "I come not to replace the Old Law, but to Fufil it"? Since Jesus was a nice Jewish boy, and said this, doesn't it mean that it sounds like he still wanted people to keep kosher? Or did everyone reject it because Paul did? It sounds like most so called Christians are actually Paulites. Frankly, I'm still convinced Saul of Tarsus never converted, and just found a really clever way to fuck up a rather troublesome cult of Judaism.
>Did you ever think of why there were such strict laws concerning milk and meat? I am pretty sure that cooking methods weren't too good back then and I am almost certain they weren't homogenizing milk. By making cloth of one fabric, you maintain the consistency and strength of the fabric. With something like Levitical law, it is CRITICAL to consider the circumstances under which the laws >were applied.
Gee, thanks for the news flash. Yes, I know all about the practical reasons that Levitacus and Numbers were laid down. Don't eat pigs or you get tricanosis. The laws about men sleeping with men was to keep them away from temple prostitues, since they needed all the breeding material they could get. The line about "It is abomination" was added by King James. (Ie It was never in the original texts.) A lot of it also had to do with maintaining ethnic and cultural purity at a time when the Jews were surrounded by hostile, foriegn people. Believe me when I say I've heard this crap a whole bunch of times.
My point, however, is that if these were the laws that Jesus followed, and they were mostly for survival, as well as Faith, why the hell would Jesus have invalidated them when you STILL didn't homogenize milk, and could still easily get parasites from pork? I just dont buy Jesus coming in and chucking out the Tanach. I think most Bible-Thumping Christians just chuck out the parts they find inconvenient and keep the parts that support whatever arrogant viewpoint they espouse. Like how back in the days of Slavery, Southerners used the scene between Noah and his Son to justify slavery (The one where Noah gets drunk and naked, his son taunts him, and Noah says that the cast out sons descendants will be slaves to the children of the other two sons.)
As for what I said in Levitacus...I'll repeat the reply that was already put in by another poster:
Leviticus 11:20-23 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you...Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
I would think that "All fowls that creep, going on all four" would refer to four-legged birds. It says all flying and creeping things with four feet. So name me a flying, creeping thing with four feet?
>Archaeologists found evidence of a great flood a few years ago when it was estimated that the Mediterranean Sea broke a natural damn and flooded into the Sea to the East of Mesopotamia. Could this be evidence of the great flood that covered all of the earth? What exactly is "all of >the earth"?
Apparently it's the flood plains around the Mediterranian, up to but not including Egypt. In the grand scheme of things, this is a large, but relatively localized event. Like I said, there is no proof that there was one, great, WORLDWIDE flood...a time where the entire world was flooded at the same time. The Creation "Scientists" can fake as many computer models as they like.
>As far as inbreeding goes, genetic scientists confirmed that all human beings came from a pair around a quarter million years ago (using modern estimations of previous human life expectancy) in sub-Saharan Africa. The ill effects of in-breeding go away after several generations of in-breeding, which is why Dogs and Cats can do it >without any problem.
Mmmmmmm....noooo. I'm not going to buy that without some solid academic proof. Humans are NOT dogs and cats. Dogs and Cats have FAR FAR greater genetic plasticity in their chromosomes than humans. I refuse to believe that the entire human species arose from just one pair. Although....it might explain what goes on in some places down south *heh*
So, I think I'm going to kick it out with a little Old Skewl MC Hawking and close with:
"Fuck the Damn Creationists
They're all a bunch of bitches
Everytime I think of them
My trigger finger itches"
(Sorry..it's crude, but I just love that song.)
I believe he's refering to Leviticus, where it refers to insects having four legs, bats being birds, as well as there being four legged birds (seen any lately?), and all sorts of crazy crap (PI being 3, and so on.)
BTW, Leviticus also says it's bad to plant gardens, wear blended fabrics, and eat meat and milk together. It also allows for parents to sell their children into slavery, or stone people for working on the Sabbath. Honestly, the way I see it, the ultra orthadox Jews follow the Bible far more literally than any Fundamentalist Christian *I'VE* ever met.
>A great flood is mentioned among many many >different societies. Even aboriginal culture >made reference to an incredible, ancient flood.
Yes, but there's no evidence to support one Great Big WorldWide Flood that happened at precisely the same time. It's a well-known fact that at the end of the Ice Age, (10K years ago) glacial dams would routinely break, releasing megatons of fresh water into the ocean, raising the sea level a few feet. It's also known that the Asia Minor plains were very suceptible to flooding around that time. It's probably the first collective memories of these floods that made their way into the Gilgemesh epics, and then later into stories like the Bible.
However, according to Biblical "Scientists" the Great Flood was happening at the same time that the Egyptian Empire was at it's zenith. People apparently forgot to tell them there was a cataclysm scheduled, because it just plumb missed them, and the Egyptians don't make any records of any Great Flood happening at that time. And these are people who had to deal with river floods almost every year.
Maybe Ra and Yahweh cut a deal? Plus, I really have trouble with the whole Noah thing. It's really difficult (read: impossible in most cases) to repopulate entire species from only one mated pair. I know all hampsters in pet shops apparently come from one female found in Siberia in 1911, but it's the higher animals that really suffer from inbreeding. Just ask people trying to breed Pandas how difficult this all is.
>You should really read and attempt to interpret >the Bible for yourself. I'll pray for you.
Uh..I have. I've decided to reject it as a literal document written by God. Did you REALLY want me to interpret the Bible for myself, or was that just said in the hopes I'd think like you?
Frankly, I have no problems beliving in Intelligent Design. I see spooky shit like Quantum Mechanics, and can see God in the details. I have no problems beliving that some higher power went and made the universe and set things in motion. If you ran up to me, panting, out of breath, and proclaimed that a "A Higher Power set everything into motion billions of years ago!" I would say "Who the fuck are you?" and then "Well, that makes sense to me."
What I DO have problems beliving is that Christianity has all the answers on Creation. I'd have a much easier time giving Creation "Scientists" their due if any of them weren't rabidly Christian. I've yet to meet a Creation "Scientist" that was of another religion. (Hint, I mean JUDEO-Christian/Western Monotheistic, so don't go quoting Jewish and Moslem Creation "Scientists" to me.) Funny that.
And if the best answer someone can come up with is "Well, God put that there to decieve us/give us a false sense of history", or "Well, God put the whole inbreeding causes problems thing into us AFTER the Great Flood" then you should immediately disqualify yourself from the Rational Thought Olympics.
Engaging Ramble Mode, Captain.
In the end, DS9 had some of the darkest and most dramatic episodes in the entire history of the franchise, especially in season six. "In The Pale Moon Light" and any episode with Section 32 in it comes to mind, and the Siege of AR-52(?) especially. It's like the writers finally got some ideas from B5 on how to do story arcs, and even managed to add their own original spin to it.
If you can ignore everything after the stupid little "Klingon-Federation Battle" story arc, you'll be in for a treat. The only exception to this is "The Visitor", which is DS9's answer to "The Inner Light." But the last three seasons are the only ones really worth a damn. Honestly, I can't see how people can say that DS9 sucked, given the high quality of work in the later part of the shows history.
Which is why it's so painful to see what they did with that last episode. Although the last five minutes were good...just barely redeeming the whole debacle.
Watching Voyager has been very....sad and painful. While it still manages to have an occasional bright spot, the series has lost "It", and I'm just glad that they are finally allowing it to limp off into the sunset, while we're still at the point where I'd rather watch a bad episode of Voyager than most anything else on prime-time TV. They will probably screw up the last episode in the same way they did for DS9 though. But, there is at least one "Good Way" they could wrap things up. My vision: in the last Episode, Voyager has to go through events that kill people (maybe even a principle actor or two.) and almost destroy the ship...but they make it home. The last scene is Voyager limping through the Sol system...pan up, and the crew are watching Earth through a staticy viewscreen. Music softly swells, and the very last scene is of other starships and shuttles drifting over to greet the returning ship.
It could end JUST like that, and be perfect. If they NEEDED additional closure, I say you just have a five minute scene: It's a year later. Voyager has been refitted, fixed and upgraded with all the new technologies aquired from the Delta Quadrant. Quantum Slipstream drive, etc etc....Voyager is supposed to be the first of a "new breed" of starship, like the Excelsior was going to be, and the Prometheus is. Janeway is still the captain, and she spends the next five minutes in her personal log just talking about what happened to the other crew members. Some would stay, some would leave. And life would go on.
I think that Series V is going to be the biggest flop in Star Trek history. I'll be surprised if it makes it past two or three seasons....and even then, the only thing carrying it along will be the "Trek" name. It strikes me as terribly uninteresting, and a digging up of old graves, due to lack of new material. A better series would have taken place just slightly ahead in the future. Maybe 10 or 20 years from the end of Voyager.
Or better yet, maybe we should just let the old girl rest a spell. We HAVE gotten 21 years worth of new material since TOS...time to let the field lay fallow for a bit.
Wow! This is just like back in the late 70's, when they had that diet candy called AYDS.
I'd like to meet the marketing exec who had to explain to his boss that they named their crappy new drink after a Hewbrew word for big sin.
The taste sure is appropriate to the name....
Well, honestly, what do you expect from a guy who has never in his life left North America. No, I am NOT kidding. Before he became President, Bush went to Mexico a couple of times, and maybe Canada. IIRC, He STILL hasn't left the continent yet. It's not like he never had the opportunity..Obviously he never had the desire.
I find it really scary to think that the Leader of the Free World has absolutely no idea what "The Free World" is like; no first hand experience with it. Maybe that kind of shit was acceptable back in the "Guilded Age" of mediocre presidentry in the 1800's, but it's a real detriment now, if you ask me. Already, he's made several diplomatic faux pas because of his basic lack of "How The Countries Of The Rest Of the World" work.
Of course, I thought Gore was a real dickhead too.
"A bit wordy. The Golden Rule is actually a term borrowed from Confucianism, whose definition is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you""
Picky Bastard Mode v 2.5 Engage:
In Confucianism, this is actually known as the "Silver Rule" and it _actually_ states (albiet not literally, I'm sure): Do NOT do unto others what you would NOT want done to you.", the justification being that something you might like having done to you might not be what someone else would like.
Anyhow, you guys miss the point ENTIRELY. Just because the specific words "Seperation of Church and State" aren't in the constitution doesn't mean that the intent of the Founding Fathers isn't interperated by most as meaning that. Just like stuff like the Triune Godhead is "interperated" from the Bible. The Fundies LOVE to crow about how this is a Christian Nation, which is an incredible crock, considering most of the Founding Fathers were Deists who despised Fundamentalist Christianity.
And before someone says something inane like "But the money says "In God We Trust"!, the money also happens to say "New Secular Order". Don't believe me? Check out the back of a One Dollar Bill sometime. It's in vulgar Latin, right under the Pyramid.
Hmmmmm....
Let's get one thing straight: People LOVE free goodies. The old timer Repulican who voted for Reagan because he wanted "smaller government" probably went to school on the GI Bill, got land from government assisted funding, draws Social Security and Medicare, etc etc...
Quoth Heinlein: TANSTAAFL. People say they want less taxes and smaller Government, but if we offered to give them true, Libertarian style "small Government", they'd flip out completely. They wouldn't be able to handle the freedom, and the RESPONSIBILITY that comes with it. People are too addicted to feeding from the Government Trough.
When Repulicans say they are in favor of "smaller government" it means they only want to cut stuff that Democrats like. And vice versa.
I suppose you could, but that means you'd have to come up with something even GOOFIER than The Church of All Worlds, or more evil than Scientology.
(Hint: Evil tends to make a lot more money than goofy!)
(Note to any Scientologists reading: PLEASE Don't hurt me!! *sniffle*)