I did say cultures change/adapt didnt I ?
But there still are people who call themselves taliban or the amish and refuse to break away...so how do you claim nobody is a slave ?
Certainly every slave has the possibility of being a "free" man.
But how will he be free? When some one does leave his culture in a hurry its mostly because of some outside influence and not because he sat down and thought about it all by himself.
Therefore, people who sit down and think for themselves, people who want to break away in a radical fashion are called leaders/philosophers/loonies/radicals.
Certainly most major religions began this way..
But I'm hardly an expert on this(I wonder if ther is one).. so feel free to disagree.
The chief of the be beheading plot is a Jordanian who moved to Iraq after the war.
More money has gone to terrorists from Saudi/UAE Princes and Saudi/UAE public. Why werent they controlled first.
Did saddam ever seem like a man who had any principles(flawed though the principles of al queada might be) to you ? Then why would he risk supportng the 911 terrorists and get his ass nuked again... his palaces, cars etc destroyed again?
Taliban? Amish?
Ok these may be extreme cultures...but how can you say nobody ?
And perhaps how open to adaptation and change a culture is depends on its extremism ? When outside influence is stronger than their rules rituals and belifs, a culture is bound to change.I've seen it among my relatives.(Witchcraft practice is now normal only among my not so educated relatives and caste members)
Perhaps saying "most people are slaves of their cultures" would be more appropriate.
They've never screwed up like we did and had the 'Fall' What is this fall that you speak of ? The eating of the forbidden fruit ?
Dont you find it strange what you believe in ? I mean do we as civilised beings punish a serial killers' grandson for no reason at all ? But you are being punished for your unknown ancestors alleged sin. How cant that possibly make sense to you ?
Another thing... if it is the fruit that gave Adam the knowledge of good and evil, how could he have known that eating the fruit* is evil before eating the fruit ?
*And disobeying gods order to find out if the fruit killed him or not.
Good points.
Before going to Leviticus etc.. I dont understand how people get past the first page. genesis 1 that says:
1)Earth was formed before light.
2)Light was formed before the sun and stars.
3)There was day night and evening before the sun
4)Life began on land.
Nobody has any logical explanations for these fallacies and contradictions but they still turn to page 2.
Guess what ?!
My parents taught me more or less the exact same things. And they've donr more than their fare share of helping the poor and not so poor. But they didnt go to church, chapel, mosque, temple ever. Ever. Infact believers will say they have no faith.
So whats your point ? What does being a good human being have to do with old/new testament, quran etc? Oh right...its got to do with going to heaven
And according to most of these believers' beliefs my parents and myself wont go to heaven. Well no thanks.
I suppose, then, people who blow up other people because of their beliefs aren't personally responsible. Their religion made them do it? Let me ask you again. If you go back in time and get your parents to adopt one of those 9/11 terrorists... do you think that he will turn out to be a person with the same beliefs?Dosent that mean that the society and atmosphere you are born in rules your beliefs. And religion is a part of that society and atmosphere.
If people only get religion from their parents, how is it there's about a billion Christians or so in the world today?
If people really gave a great deal of thought to their beliefs, why are there only a billion christians? Why wont the smart people in Japan, India, China convert to chiristinity as it is the only right path according to many people. If people thought and chose, it should be really abvious atleast to educated and smart people that christianity is the only way to god. And which christianity should they choose ? Catholic ? Protestant lutheran jehovas witness mormon.. amish...kkk ?
In a free society, people have as much free will as they want to have. ? I just explained that no society is or has been as "free" as you seem to suggest.
"Doesn't matter what I believe in. What matters is what's true." These two sentences are contradictory... as existance of heaven and hell(and other things) is not proven. But you accept it as true and believe in it.
Hence:
Incorrect.
And your argument elsewhere that beliefs are chosen by carefull examination of arguments, evidence etc etc falls apart as well. Where have you found evidence of heaven and hell ?
All of you have gotten yourselves into a really bad situation that you can't escape by yourselves.
Well... many christians believe that we got in this "really bad situation" because Adam ate the wrong fruit.
Are those who believe this all wrong then ?
Dont you find it strange what they believe in ? I mean do we as civilised beings punish a serial killers' grandson for no reason at all ?
And here I am...stuck in hell because my ancestor had bad choice in food. Another thing... if the fruit gave Adam the knowledge of good and evil, how could he have known that eating the fruit* is evil before eating the fruit ?
*And disobeying gods order for finding out if the fruit killed him or not.
Shouldn't beliefs be formed from careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence?
Really ? Is that why 90+% people in a country like say, Italy are christians? Is that why a person born to a Hindu family in India "chooses" to be hindu and not shinto? Because his belief was formed from careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence? Is that why a Amreican Indian born in a Cherokee tribe in 1600AD chose his religion and "chose" not to be a neighbouring Chicksaw ?
If I go back in time, kidnap you when you were 2 yrs old and somehow get you adopted by a rural buddist japanese family, would you still choose your belief by a "careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence" ?
Do you even see what I'm trying to say here ?
I'm saying that free will is a myth for the vast majority of people. Its the society where they are born in, the atmosphere they grow up in that shapes your belief. And its the same for you. Thats why you "chose" christianity.
Thats why a two yr old boy born to a taliban terrorist is far far more likely to follow militant islamic beliefs. And if you were to go adopt this kid right now.. guees what beliefs he will choose.
Makes me wonder why your god gave birth to this taliban kid in Afghan when he could have easily put him in a rich white suburb in Boston.
I'm wondering what ACL you've setup..
At my Univ, the cumputers are totally locked down.
I cant install usefull stuff like Winrar, 7zip, Java SDk..
Hell, you cant access display preperties, see the printers installed.
But you wont believe the amount of spyware and viruses our network has.
Their solution is to quickly reinstall from custom image CD's. Which also means all your settings are gone for that PC.
Thankfully, they've been having Firefox on their reinstall images for the past few months.
All I want, and all I care about is having the best product for the best price.
If thats what you want, you should care. You get the best product for the best price due to competition remember ? And competition is what we've got here.
Once a premier newspaper, it has reduced to a tabloid and semi porn website now.
That is so true. Semi-porn is exactly what I call it. I stopped going there (and reading the paper) a while ago.
I prefer the Indian Express.
Informative ??? What crap..
I dont know what you are smoking.. I'm from India and let me tell you a US$ 30K salray in India is equivalent to a US $500K salary in the US.
The average programmer makes 20 000 Rs a month.. thats 5500 US$ a year. Many people make less than that.
If people could make 30K a year there, why do you think thousands like me want to come to the US ?
As for being able to afford maids etc.. its not that rosy. The difference is a maid in the US can do something to make her children go in good schools and have a better life. The maid who works for my landlord in the US comes to work in a toyota Highlander SUV... a car that only the super rich in India can afford. Hyundai sells a "high end" SUV in India which sold a grand total of 35 units in Feb 2004.
How do you plan to explain the rest of the questions/verses?
The first page where it says the Sun came after the day and night ? And the earth came before the Sun?
The one about God wanting 32 virgins...?
The absent verses condeming slavery and the abundant ones clearly describing as normal way of life ?
Like the verse saying how whats-his-name screwed his slave to get a child coz his wife couldnt concieve ?
The verses where children are murdered ?
There are tons more.. cant help you if you "studied" it for years and couldnt find them.
Its god fault if he knows there books, used in his name, that can be easily twisted but he does not do anything about it.
How do you plan to explain all this ? Oh right.. its "symbolism" that I mistook for reality. Got it.
Btw..why dont the symbolism/reality stories that are supposed to tell us what not to do have big disclaimers saying "Do Not Try This at Home"?
I dont know what you want to say, but I wanted to say this:.
The knowledge of good and bad, right or wrong came to man only when Eve "disobeyed" Gods order.
Then how could she know disobeying gods order is "bad" until she ate the fruit ??? Would you punish your 3 yr old if he puts his hand in the fire, although you told him fire would "kill" him but he dosent know what "kill" is ? Would you punish him for his first mistake and not forgive it? Would you put the fire in the middle of the living room in the first place ?
Would an "all knowing " god not see the serpernt tempting eve ? Why dosent he stop him ? Why does the all knowing god have to ask adam "where are you "?
Why does the first story in the bible end with the great god punishing his children and not forgiving them ?
Why does god punish Adams and Eves children, grand children, and many millions of their relatives to follow *simply* beacuse Eve ate the fruit?
Would you punish your grand children if your son was a evil man ?
Put everyone in a garden in all innocence with the tree in the middle. Then, if they eat the fruit, punish them. (You may try forgiving once in a while.)
If its *our* choice to be good or bad, why is it that more black people end up in jail than their representation in population? Looking at thise figures, wouldnt you say a black 4 yrs old kid born in a bad detroit/philly/NY ghetto is *far more* likely to be a drug dealer/pimp/gangster than a kid born in a queit white middle class suburb ? So how is it the black kids choice ?
Wouldnt you say a kid born to a 16 yr old cheap hooker be *far far more* likely to become another whore/drug user than a kid who posts on slashdot when he/she is 17? So how is it the kids fault ?
Wouldnt you agree that a boy born in Afghan to osama bin laden or one of his 10000 cronies be *far far far more* likely to turn out to be a woman abusing, gunslinging, West hating, five-times-married-with-fifteen-kids bastard ?
Where is this boys "choice" ?
Sure everyone has *some* "choice". But its so limited by the society, friends, enviroment they grow in that its no choice at all.
Why dosent god make sure everyone on earth is born in a nice white middle class family with decent parents (who are christians of course) and then decide how to judge any "transgressions"?
Finally, did you know the Sun came after the earth and the night and the day. Its in Genesis
The fact remains that America always has and still does buy very little oil from the Persian Gulf, and even less from Iraq.
True. But the US buys @20% of its imported oil from the Gulf. 20% is a significant number for a commodity that takes a long time from raw material to final product. Any price shakeup or problems in the Gulf means that the US cannot make up for this 20% from other countries in a short time. ("Hey canucks, mexicans can we have double the oil from you in the next few months please?")
Also notice price shakeups have hisorically been led by Gulf states.
? 30 000 iraqi soldiers and 10 000 civilians died.
Civilian deaths due to UN embargo are reported to be as high as 100 000.
They were slaughtered dip shit.
Now many thousands will die when Iraq is left in bloddy chaos after the US military leaves after June 30.
Saddam is gone but:
1) Iraq in chaos.. no "freedom" for them yet.
2) We are still scared shitless of terroists. Remeber that when you are stripped naked for your next plane/train/bus trip by heavily armed gaurds on whom we are spending 100's of billions to "secure" all borders.
3) Sorry but no WMD's found.
So exactly what was acheived by this war ?
If Saddam is gone.. if Bin ladens back is broken.. I guess we should be spending LESS on "security" not more right ? Didn't I hear people say how Saddam supported terroists? So then if we spent 100 billion last year.. we should be going down to 90? 80?
Or maybe I missed something...maybe this wasn't the correct way to deal with this terrorist problem in the first place.
And it dosent help when the US president thinks he was chosen by God to lead the world and crap like that.
If Bush wants to "free" anyone he should start with Saudi Arabia. A country with the same population as Iraq (25 million). A place where women are not allowed to do things that even a circus monkey can in other countries (even Iraq). Women still cant ride a BICYCLE there. They cant drive, they cant get decent education and thus decent jobs. Not to mention abused, raped, forced in early marriage with a 70 year old who already has 7 concubines...
Here we have a country thats keeping HALF its population under total subjugation, but somehow, when it comes to "freedom" in the middle east, Iraq is the first target.
Hell they had a chance to get democracy back in Kuwait, a country with five times less people than NY city,but they restore its dictator.
The only conclusion I reached is that the bible is a spaghetti mix of rambling discources, many of which no ones knows who exactly authored.
And ten different Advanced degree holders from ten Generations, having degrees in theology, ancient culture and what-have-you, will give you ten different interpretations and moral implications.
Your claim that 20th century conventions do not apply when interpreting the bible only shows how irrelevant the bible is and always was.
If you are a christian : The bible is the word of god for te common masses. Dont you think I should be able to interpret without an advanced degree in XYZ like every other common christian ? And when 2 billion read it they should draw exactly ONE conclusion from each verse ?
Now the Bible doesn't tell us the age of the "boys" that were killed in the battle...
Why should anybody be killed ? I thought your god was a god of forgiveness compassion etc ?
If it was a "holy" war, why does it speak of *plunder* ?
If these "boys" were born jews, dont you think they would have "known what they were doing" ? So why did your god decide to make them midianites ? Dont you say that its god who makes every human being ? He could have made them aztecs or abroginies... hey he could have sent them to australia instead of slaughtering them.
And what excuses do you have for god telling the jews to keep all VIRGIN women for themselves ? (Or is this the reason you are into this bullshit?) Are these virgins not "Baal worshippers" like the boys ? Oh I'm sorry... I guess the jews just wanted to screw them... as compensation for the midanites sins against jews I guess.
Finally: your god kept THIRTY TWO of these virgins.. what exactly for ?
It was by the Hand of God that Israel was victorious. Really ? Then lets see Israel stop receiving all aid(esp military aid) from the US then we'll see if its the hand of god or the hand of white house.
Israel bombed Iran in 1981 because of their nuclear site. Ummm.. that was Iraq... they didnt actually have nuclear weapons. And guess what ? Pakistan HAS nukes ! I dont see them getting bombed.
I've read the story of sodom.. where god kills Lot's wife simply because she looks back... I guess that makes a lot of sense to you.. a woman looks back (for pity, for sadness that her home is destroyed, who knows) and the god of compassion mercy etc etc...KILLS her.
So I conclude that besides muslims, hindus(idolators) you also want homosexuals dead as well.
No wonder theres no peace... in every country its guys like you who are in charge.
Fiction ?
Why dont you visit this link.Landover page for example, and then visit NetBible.org
then check out and tally all bible references on the landover page.
Try Numbers Chap 31 for starters.. especially verse 17. I dont see why I should take any of this seriously. But many people do take it seriously.. thats why the world continues to be so fucked up I guess. Whats worse is so many people on slashdot (arguably having a populace with higher average intellect) takes it seriously.
This is the first time I've been to the landover site... and while it may be possible that they are around just to make money, it does not change the fact that the bible is nonsense.
There are places where you can get most of the critical updates. Autopatcher is what I use. Notice how it installs ALL patches and utilities that it comes with in one go.
I dont care about windows update scans and "suggestions".. all I want are the critical patches.
I've got 2 gigabit cards: a Trendnet RTL8169 ($25)in a Linux box and a Edimax Marvel Yukon($18) in a WinXp box. In between is a Edimax 5500S Gb ($ 70 !!!) switch.
File copying (large files, CD images) is very fast... an utility I use to measure transfer speed often claims 20-30 MBytes/sec. It does feel as fast as copying between two HDD's in the same PC and its noticeibly faster than two other PC's on 100Mbit.
The RTL8169 has been detected and installed by 2.6.0 (and above) with no problems. I'm sure the Edimax will work with no issues as well.... its got Linux drivers too.
There are a number of sources that have all the windows patches available as a complete download.
Much better than fiddling around on windows update.
Like this. [autopatcher.com]
Autopatcher will install all updates in one go. Will also install java, tweakui and other usefull stuff. Also makes frequent reinstall easier.
Slashdot Mirror
I did say cultures change/adapt didnt I ?
But there still are people who call themselves taliban or the amish and refuse to break away...so how do you claim nobody is a slave ?
Certainly every slave has the possibility of being a "free" man.
But how will he be free? When some one does leave his culture in a hurry its mostly because of some outside influence and not because he sat down and thought about it all by himself.
Therefore, people who sit down and think for themselves, people who want to break away in a radical fashion are called leaders/philosophers/loonies/radicals.
Certainly most major religions began this way..
But I'm hardly an expert on this(I wonder if ther is one).. so feel free to disagree.
The chief of the be beheading plot is a Jordanian who moved to Iraq after the war. ... his palaces, cars etc destroyed again?
More money has gone to terrorists from Saudi/UAE Princes and Saudi/UAE public. Why werent they controlled first.
Did saddam ever seem like a man who had any principles(flawed though the principles of al queada might be) to you ? Then why would he risk supportng the 911 terrorists and get his ass nuked again
Taliban? Amish?
Ok these may be extreme cultures...but how can you say nobody ?
And perhaps how open to adaptation and change a culture is depends on its extremism ? When outside influence is stronger than their rules rituals and belifs, a culture is bound to change.I've seen it among my relatives.(Witchcraft practice is now normal only among my not so educated relatives and caste members)
Perhaps saying "most people are slaves of their cultures" would be more appropriate.
They've never screwed up like we did and had the 'Fall'
What is this fall that you speak of ? The eating of the forbidden fruit ?
Dont you find it strange what you believe in ? I mean do we as civilised beings punish a serial killers' grandson for no reason at all ?
But you are being punished for your unknown ancestors alleged sin. How cant that possibly make sense to you ?
Another thing... if it is the fruit that gave Adam the knowledge of good and evil, how could he have known that eating the fruit* is evil before eating the fruit ?
*And disobeying gods order to find out if the fruit killed him or not.
Good points. .. I dont understand how people get past the first page. genesis 1 that says:
Before going to Leviticus etc
1)Earth was formed before light.
2)Light was formed before the sun and stars.
3)There was day night and evening before the sun
4)Life began on land.
Nobody has any logical explanations for these fallacies and contradictions but they still turn to page 2.
Guess what ?! ...its got to do with going to heaven
My parents taught me more or less the exact same things. And they've donr more than their fare share of helping the poor and not so poor. But they didnt go to church, chapel, mosque, temple ever. Ever. Infact believers will say they have no faith.
So whats your point ? What does being a good human being have to do with old/new testament, quran etc? Oh right
And according to most of these believers' beliefs my parents and myself wont go to heaven. Well no thanks.
I suppose, then, people who blow up other people because of their beliefs aren't personally responsible. Their religion made them do it? .. amish...kkk ?
Let me ask you again. If you go back in time and get your parents to adopt one of those 9/11 terrorists... do you think that he will turn out to be a person with the same beliefs?Dosent that mean that the society and atmosphere you are born in rules your beliefs. And religion is a part of that society and atmosphere.
If people only get religion from their parents, how is it there's about a billion Christians or so in the world today?
If people really gave a great deal of thought to their beliefs, why are there only a billion christians? Why wont the smart people in Japan, India, China convert to chiristinity as it is the only right path according to many people. If people thought and chose, it should be really abvious atleast to educated and smart people that christianity is the only way to god. And which christianity should they choose ? Catholic ? Protestant lutheran jehovas witness mormon
In a free society, people have as much free will as they want to have.
? I just explained that no society is or has been as "free" as you seem to suggest.
"Doesn't matter what I believe in. What matters is what's true."
These two sentences are contradictory... as existance of heaven and hell(and other things) is not proven. But you accept it as true and believe in it.
Hence:
Incorrect.
And your argument elsewhere that beliefs are chosen by carefull examination of arguments, evidence etc etc falls apart as well. Where have you found evidence of heaven and hell ?
All of you have gotten yourselves into a really bad situation that you can't escape by yourselves. ...stuck in hell because my ancestor had bad choice in food. Another thing... if the fruit gave Adam the knowledge of good and evil, how could he have known that eating the fruit* is evil before eating the fruit ?
Well... many christians believe that we got in this "really bad situation" because Adam ate the wrong fruit.
Are those who believe this all wrong then ?
Dont you find it strange what they believe in ? I mean do we as civilised beings punish a serial killers' grandson for no reason at all ?
And here I am
*And disobeying gods order for finding out if the fruit killed him or not.
Shouldn't beliefs be formed from careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence?
Really ? Is that why 90+% people in a country like say, Italy are christians?
Is that why a person born to a Hindu family in India "chooses" to be hindu and not shinto? Because his belief was formed from careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence? Is that why a Amreican Indian born in a Cherokee tribe in 1600AD chose his religion and "chose" not to be a neighbouring Chicksaw ?
If I go back in time, kidnap you when you were 2 yrs old and somehow get you adopted by a rural buddist japanese family, would you still choose your belief by a "careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence" ?
Do you even see what I'm trying to say here ? I'm saying that free will is a myth for the vast majority of people. Its the society where they are born in, the atmosphere they grow up in that shapes your belief. And its the same for you. Thats why you "chose" christianity.
Thats why a two yr old boy born to a taliban terrorist is far far more likely to follow militant islamic beliefs. And if you were to go adopt this kid right now.. guees what beliefs he will choose.
Makes me wonder why your god gave birth to this taliban kid in Afghan when he could have easily put him in a rich white suburb in Boston.
I meant 4) Life began on land. :-|
I'm wondering what ACL you've setup.. At my Univ, the cumputers are totally locked down. I cant install usefull stuff like Winrar, 7zip, Java SDk.. Hell, you cant access display preperties, see the printers installed.
But you wont believe the amount of spyware and viruses our network has.
Their solution is to quickly reinstall from custom image CD's. Which also means all your settings are gone for that PC.
Thankfully, they've been having Firefox on their reinstall images for the past few months.
All I want, and all I care about is having the best product for the best price.
If thats what you want, you should care. You get the best product for the best price due to competition remember ? And competition is what we've got here.
Once a premier newspaper, it has reduced to a tabloid and semi porn website now.
That is so true. Semi-porn is exactly what I call it. I stopped going there (and reading the paper) a while ago.
I prefer the Indian Express.
Informative ??? What crap ..
.. I'm from India and let me tell you a US$ 30K salray in India is equivalent to a US $500K salary in the US.
.. thats 5500 US$ a year. Many people make less than that.
.. its not that rosy. The difference is a maid in the US can do something to make her children go in good schools and have a better life. The maid who works for my landlord in the US comes to work in a toyota Highlander SUV... a car that only the super rich in India can afford. Hyundai sells a "high end" SUV in India which sold a grand total of 35 units in Feb 2004.
I dont know what you are smoking
The average programmer makes 20 000 Rs a month
If people could make 30K a year there, why do you think thousands like me want to come to the US ?
As for being able to afford maids etc
How do you plan to explain the rest of the questions /verses?
...?
.. cant help you if you "studied" it for years and couldnt find them.
.. its "symbolism" that I mistook for reality. Got it.
..why dont the symbolism/reality stories that are supposed to tell us what not to do have big disclaimers saying "Do Not Try This at Home"?
The first page where it says the Sun came after the day and night ? And the earth came before the Sun? The one about God wanting 32 virgins
The absent verses condeming slavery and the abundant ones clearly describing as normal way of life ? Like the verse saying how whats-his-name screwed his slave to get a child coz his wife couldnt concieve ?
The verses where children are murdered ? There are tons more
Its god fault if he knows there books, used in his name, that can be easily twisted but he does not do anything about it.
How do you plan to explain all this ? Oh right
Btw
I dont know what you want to say, but I wanted to say this:.
The knowledge of good and bad, right or wrong came to man only when Eve "disobeyed" Gods order.
Then how could she know disobeying gods order is "bad" until she ate the fruit ??? Would you punish your 3 yr old if he puts his hand in the fire, although you told him fire would "kill" him but he dosent know what "kill" is ? Would you punish him for his first mistake and not forgive it? Would you put the fire in the middle of the living room in the first place ?
Would an "all knowing " god not see the serpernt tempting eve ? Why dosent he stop him ? Why does the all knowing god have to ask adam "where are you "?
Why does the first story in the bible end with the great god punishing his children and not forgiving them ?
Why does god punish Adams and Eves children, grand children, and many millions of their relatives to follow *simply* beacuse Eve ate the fruit?
Would you punish your grand children if your son was a evil man ?
Put everyone in a garden in all innocence with the tree in the middle. Then, if they eat the fruit, punish them. (You may try forgiving once in a while.)
If its *our* choice to be good or bad, why is it that more black people end up in jail than their representation in population? Looking at thise figures, wouldnt you say a black 4 yrs old kid born in a bad detroit/philly/NY ghetto is *far more* likely to be a drug dealer/pimp/gangster than a kid born in a queit white middle class suburb ? So how is it the black kids choice ?
Wouldnt you say a kid born to a 16 yr old cheap hooker be *far far more* likely to become another whore/drug user than a kid who posts on slashdot when he/she is 17? So how is it the kids fault ?
Wouldnt you agree that a boy born in Afghan to osama bin laden or one of his 10000 cronies be *far far far more* likely to turn out to be a woman abusing, gunslinging, West hating, five-times-married-with-fifteen-kids bastard ? Where is this boys "choice" ?
Sure everyone has *some* "choice". But its so limited by the society, friends, enviroment they grow in that its no choice at all.
Why dosent god make sure everyone on earth is born in a nice white middle class family with decent parents (who are christians of course) and then decide how to judge any "transgressions"?
Finally, did you know the Sun came after the earth and the night and the day. Its in Genesis
The fact remains that America always has and still does buy very little oil from the Persian Gulf, and even less from Iraq.
True. But the US buys @20% of its imported oil from the Gulf. 20% is a significant number for a commodity that takes a long time from raw material to final product. Any price shakeup or problems in the Gulf means that the US cannot make up for this 20% from other countries in a short time. ("Hey canucks, mexicans can we have double the oil from you in the next few months please?")
Also notice price shakeups have hisorically been led by Gulf states.
? 30 000 iraqi soldiers and 10 000 civilians died. Civilian deaths due to UN embargo are reported to be as high as 100 000. .. no "freedom" for them yet. .. if Bin ladens back is broken.. I guess we should be spending LESS on "security" not more right ? Didn't I hear people say how Saddam supported terroists? So then if we spent 100 billion last year.. we should be going down to 90? 80?
They were slaughtered dip shit.
Now many thousands will die when Iraq is left in bloddy chaos after the US military leaves after June 30.
Saddam is gone but:
1) Iraq in chaos
2) We are still scared shitless of terroists. Remeber that when you are stripped naked for your next plane/train/bus trip by heavily armed gaurds on whom we are spending 100's of billions to "secure" all borders.
3) Sorry but no WMD's found.
So exactly what was acheived by this war ?
If Saddam is gone
Or maybe I missed something...maybe this wasn't the correct way to deal with this terrorist problem in the first place.
And it dosent help when the US president thinks he was chosen by God to lead the world and crap like that.
If Bush wants to "free" anyone he should start with Saudi Arabia. A country with the same population as Iraq (25 million). A place where women are not allowed to do things that even a circus monkey can in other countries (even Iraq). Women still cant ride a BICYCLE there. They cant drive, they cant get decent education and thus decent jobs. Not to mention abused, raped, forced in early marriage with a 70 year old who already has 7 concubines...
Here we have a country thats keeping HALF its population under total subjugation, but somehow, when it comes to "freedom" in the middle east, Iraq is the first target.
Hell they had a chance to get democracy back in Kuwait, a country with five times less people than NY city,but they restore its dictator.
The only conclusion I reached is that the bible is a spaghetti mix of rambling discources, many of which no ones knows who exactly authored.
And ten different Advanced degree holders from ten Generations, having degrees in theology, ancient culture and what-have-you, will give you ten different interpretations and moral implications.
Your claim that 20th century conventions do not apply when interpreting the bible only shows how irrelevant the bible is and always was.
If you are a christian : The bible is the word of god for te common masses. Dont you think I should be able to interpret without an advanced degree in XYZ like every other common christian ? And when 2 billion read it they should draw exactly ONE conclusion from each verse ?
Now the Bible doesn't tell us the age of the "boys" that were killed in the battle... ... hey he could have sent them to australia instead of slaughtering them.
... I guess the jews just wanted to screw them ... as compensation for the midanites sins against jews I guess.
Why should anybody be killed ? I thought your god was a god of forgiveness compassion etc ?
If it was a "holy" war, why does it speak of *plunder* ?
If these "boys" were born jews, dont you think they would have "known what they were doing" ? So why did your god decide to make them midianites ? Dont you say that its god who makes every human being ? He could have made them aztecs or abroginies
And what excuses do you have for god telling the jews to keep all VIRGIN women for themselves ? (Or is this the reason you are into this bullshit?) Are these virgins not "Baal worshippers" like the boys ? Oh I'm sorry
Finally: your god kept THIRTY TWO of these virgins.. what exactly for ?
It was by the Hand of God that Israel was victorious.
Really ? Then lets see Israel stop receiving all aid(esp military aid) from the US then we'll see if its the hand of god or the hand of white house.
Israel bombed Iran in 1981 because of their nuclear site.
Ummm.. that was Iraq... they didnt actually have nuclear weapons. And guess what ? Pakistan HAS nukes ! I dont see them getting bombed.
I've read the story of sodom.. where god kills Lot's wife simply because she looks back... I guess that makes a lot of sense to you.. a woman looks back (for pity, for sadness that her home is destroyed, who knows) and the god of compassion mercy etc etc...KILLS her.
So I conclude that besides muslims, hindus(idolators) you also want homosexuals dead as well. No wonder theres no peace... in every country its guys like you who are in charge.
Fiction ? .. especially verse 17. I dont see why I should take any of this seriously. But many people do take it seriously.. thats why the world continues to be so fucked up I guess. Whats worse is so many people on slashdot (arguably having a populace with higher average intellect) takes it seriously.
... and while it may be possible that they are around just to make money, it does not change the fact that the bible is nonsense.
Why dont you visit this link.Landover page for example, and then visit
NetBible.org then check out and tally all bible references on the landover page.
Try Numbers Chap 31 for starters
This is the first time I've been to the landover site
There are places where you can get most of the critical updates.
Autopatcher is what I use. Notice how it installs ALL patches and utilities that it comes with in one go.
I dont care about windows update scans and "suggestions".. all I want are the critical patches.
I've got 2 gigabit cards: a Trendnet RTL8169 ($25)in a Linux box and a Edimax Marvel Yukon($18) in a WinXp box. In between is a Edimax 5500S Gb ($ 70 !!!) switch. ... an utility I use to measure transfer speed often claims 20-30 MBytes/sec. It does feel as fast as copying between two HDD's in the same PC and its noticeibly faster than two other PC's on 100Mbit.
File copying (large files, CD images) is very fast
The RTL8169 has been detected and installed by 2.6.0 (and above) with no problems. I'm sure the Edimax will work with no issues as well.... its got Linux drivers too.
There are a number of sources that have all the windows patches available as a complete download. Much better than fiddling around on windows update.
Like this. [autopatcher.com]
Autopatcher will install all updates in one go. Will also install java, tweakui and other usefull stuff. Also makes frequent reinstall easier.