. Anybody who believes in a real God, not an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us" (nods to Yoda), will admit that we are not alone in the Universe.
Thanks for mentioning Yoda. It makes my response on-topic (since religion is off-topic, but star wars is ALWAYS on-topic).
I always took the "FORCE" of the Star Wars series to be the exact same thing as "GOD." They're both symbols for the unknown (and unknowable) forces that guide us and shape our reality. The only difference I see in the concept of GOD and the concept of FORCE is that many literal-minded religious people tend to think of GOD as being a person, which doesn't make much sense when you consider all the other forms of life that are not even remotely human. (Plants, other animals, insects, bacteria, etc.)
Besides, if GOD (a symbol) is really omnipresent and infinite, how could GOD be anything BUT an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us?"
How can we believe that GOD spoke to Moses on the mountain unless GOD speaks to us as well? Belief without evidence is not religion. It is better to be an athiest than to believe without seeing.
(That being said, this guy truely believed in GOD. Draw your own conclusions.)
Thus we know that the idea of mental projection in the absence of projecting some 'thing' (e.g. photons) is a looser.
I suppose it's not at all possible that the 'thing'(e.g. photon-like) is something undiscovered by human scientists thus far? About a thousand years ago we would regularly 'bleed' people to release 'bad humours' that were keeping them from being well. If, at that point, someone had proposed that microscopic 'germs' were the real cause, they probably would've been told that such ideas were also the 'looser' [sic].
Back when my boards (Waste, Absolute Zero) were up, I almost exclusively ran Renegade. I checked out Ob/2 but found all the ASCII art (in the SYSOP MENUS!) really annoying. Renegade allowed me to easily customize the look of my bbs (new menus, new cursors, new everything) once a day or once a week. I actually had several menu sets up that would randomly switch between each caller. It was stable and reliable and fun.
The only complaint I ever had about renegade was that it didn't support WWIVNET, where all the good message nets existed. (FIDO sucked.)
Ultima Online and Everquest boast 'massively multiplayer' because any number of users could theoretically connect to the same online game.
'Massively multiplayer' doesn't apply to the text based games such as TradeWars and MUDs because those have always allowed any number of users to connect.
I think the confusion here is caused by your memory. Tradewars 2002 was a text based, trade oriented BBS RPG. The new game being proposed will be a Graphical game. It won't be text based anymore. You'll pilot CGI ships instead of extended ASCII characters.
As far as their "Massively Multiplayer" designation (which I won't comment on) I'll quote from the FAQ:
What type of game will Trade Wars: Dark Millennium be?
Trade Wars: Dark Millennium will be a massive multiplayer online game. It will combine both role-playing and real-time strategy elements in a persistent world where players can trade, form alliances and build empires.
What are your expectations for the size of the game?
Realm hopes to have hundreds of thousands of people in the persistent game world. The universe will be partitioned into shards of several thousand people.
Now... I've never played everquest, but hundreds of thousands of people playing in a universe, seperated into small galaxies of >10,000 people... sounds pretty large scale to me. -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
I've read about 50 posts so far in this discussion with people saying things like "I'm gonna clone Mel Gibson/Nat. Portman/etc. for a love doll" and sure, it was funny (mildly so, anyway) with post #1... but by post #50 I was no longer amused and no longer certain that people were TRYING to be funny.
You do realize that any clone will basically be a twin of the original person, not an identical individual with memories, experience, etc. intact.
Supposing you DID manage to get a scraping from Natalie Portman's DNA, you're still gonna have to sit around for another 18 years (except you pedophiles) before you'll be able to put your 'personal' Natalie into use... and unless you school her, teach her to walk, talk, etc., she'll be able to do little besides giggle in infantile glee or shriek in monkey-fear when she sees the uses you've got for her.
In short... cloning does NOT work the way it does in bad twilight zone episodes.
You know, the link up above is a really worthwhile (and eye-popping) read on the sad state of affairs that is a major label recording contract, written by one of the big engineer/producers of the 90's, Steve Albini.
God is infinite, as in we cannot comprehend his existence. God is everywhere and in everything; that's not the same as saying God IS everything - God is not the tree, God is not a computer monitor...
Please explain to me how ANYTHING (say, GOD) could at once be INFINITE (without boundaries) and yet NOT be somewhere (such as here, there or everywhere) or something (such as computer monitor or tree)...
If the tree and computer monitor (and the rest of creation) do NOT exist within GOD, where *DO* they exist? And how does this reconcile with GOD's INFINITE nature?
Your own bible begins thusly:
In the beginning there was GOD and VOID.
Ok.. now, Shakespeare may not be an authority you are willing to accept, but as King Lear said to Cordelia, "Nothing shall come of nothing."
If, in the beginning, there was only GOD, and then creation sprang into being... where did it spring from? And where did it spring to?
Ok. Next question.. If you can't possibly remove even a COMPUTER MONITOR from the list of "what exists within the scope of infinity" how do you propose to remove yourself? Or me?
If you have one thing here and one thing there and they are not parts of the same thing, neither of them can be said to be infinite, because infinity is necessarily inclusive of everything.
If GOD is infinite (as all major and most minor religions suggest) then there is no way for ANYTHING to exist, except out of GOD. But GOD can't LOSE substance... he's infinite. So any substance, whether it seems to be "computer monitor" or "hand" or "bible" is really just a part of that one glorious, infinite whole.
(Ever notice that everything -- stars, planets, plants, animals, computer monitors, etc -- are made up of the same stuff? The air you're breathing is composed of the VERY SAME MATERIAL that make up your computer monitor and your you.)
Since we're having fun quoting old books, here's some smack-down from Swami Vivekananda, in the early 1800s:
"Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is within you. Again he says, "Our father who art in Heaven." How do you reconcile the two sayings? In this way: He was talking to the uneducated masses when he said the latter, the masses who were uneducated in religion. It was necessary to speak to them in their own language. The masses want concrete ideas, something the senses can grasp.... When a man has developed a high state of spirituality he can understand that the kingdom of heaven is within him.... Thus we see that the apparent contradictions and perplexities in every religion mark but different stages of growth.... The next idea that I want to bring you is that religion does not consist in doctrines or dogmas.... We live and move in God. Creeds and sects have their parts to play, but they are for children, they last but temporarily.... The end of all religion is the realizing of God in the soul. That is the one universal religion. If there is one universal truth in all religions, I place it here -- in realising God. Ideals and methods may differ, but that is the central point.
A man may believe in all the churches in the world, he may carry in his head all the sacred books ever written, he may baptise himself in all the rivers of the earth, still, if he has no perception of God, I would classify him with the rankest atheist. And a man may have never entered a church or a mosque, nor performed any ceremony, but if he feels God within himself and is thereby lifted above the vanities of the world, that man is a holy man, a saint, call him what you will.
So far as they are not exclusive, I see that the sects and creeds are all mine; they are all grand. They are all helping men towards the real religion. I will add, it is good to be born in a church, but it is bad to die there. It is good to be born a child, but bad to remain a child. Churches, ceremonies and symbols are good for children, but when the child is grown, he must burst the church or himself." - excerpted from Book One of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
You are not "Living by the "rules" in the Bible" if you take the second half of this most basic rule without the first half
Jesus (Yeshua if you prefer) was speaking to the Hebrews and as such had to speak to the MASSES in a way that they could accept and understand, so he spoke to them about a god in the sky (like the Jehova/Yahweh "God of the Mountain" that they already worshiped) but also spoke to them of loving their neighbor as themselves. It's not a two-part rule, it's the same rule twice, just in a way that an unenlightened individual can understand. Let me translate for you:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Your neighbor and yourself have one big thing in common... SELF.
SELF=SOUL=GOD
GOD is infinite. Which is to say, anything that exists falls within GOD because there's no other way it can be. If you say GOD is over there and the universe is over here, then GOD isn't infinite. Infinity only allows ONE. If you have infinite this over here and infinite that over there... there is no infinity.
When you love GOD with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, you don't have any room for hate, greed, jealousy, anger. When you love your neighbor as yourself, you are showing that you recognise that GOD exists as the "observer" in each of us. That no human (no matter their status, intelligence or weakness) is lesser than any other, because all are merely reflections of one and the same thing.
Way back in the old testament we find out that one of GOD's names is "I AM"
You don't seem to get it. Most of this country lives in urban centers.
Oh... urban centers such as.... Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago? Places like that? Last I checked, they were squarely rooted in the midwest. Oh! But you were overgeneralizing weren't you? You thought I was responding to YOUR percieved idea of what the midwest is like, and instead, I was saying something completely different!
I was born in St. Louis. I have spent several years in Los Angeles. If you think that its a different world, you're fooling yourself. Are there ANY differences between a place like LA and St. Louis? Yes. They are, after all, different locations. But does that mean that the midwest is a largely unpopulated section of the country filled only with farmland and sharecroppers? No. I'm happy to inform you that there are MILLIONS of American citizens living and working in midwestern CITIES!
<sarcasm>Aww shucks, mr. cityman. Us dumb country folk just cainn't unnerstan' thing as good as you rich city slickers. Why just yestaday, it seems, we got ourselves a k-mart and a mcdonalds! </sarcasm>
nah dude, you have it wrong. that wasnt being racist at all you damn chink. now that was being racist. Get it?
Racism is not limited to words such as "chink," "wop," "Spic," "Nigger," etc. Racism is defining someone by their racial heritage... examples of racism:
"My buddy Joe is really cool for a black guy."
"I love to fuck chinese women, they're so EASY."
"I hate all you fucking whitebread american bastards."
Now, only my third example is the kind of thing YOU have defined as racism, but all three of my example statements involve classifying (or stereotyping) someone based on the singular criteria of their race.
It is just as much racism to say "White people are the best!" as it is to say "Black people are the worst!"
Get rid of the hollywood bigwigs and the entire midwest goes bankrupt.
Of course, the reverse of your theory is also true... get rid of the midwest and there's nobody to watch the $50 million blockbuster summer movies, and then... lo and behold! The entire hollywood bigwig community goes bankrupt!
or buy a vibrator and tape it to your mouse.
of course, this wouldn't be good for people in conservative homes, or people like me that have the computer in their bedroom. (I can deal with my 15 cooling fans, but a vibrator? woah!)
Wouldn't it be even MORE advantageous to the people who keep their computer in the bedroom? You wouldn't have to run down to the basement to get your vibrator when you were busy checking out the pr0n. Easy, instant access.
What impact will this have on people that believe in god? This can be proof of the ability to have e.t. life. Not proof per se, but that its possible. Does anyone that reads slashdot even believe in god?
I have some ideas about GOD (a symbol) but i don't have any beliefs on the subject. If GOD is really infinite, there is no way a finite human mind can possibly hope to encapsulate that infinite being in a book, or creed, or any other set of rules. No matter how much we may be able to infer about GOD (still a symbol) we must rest assured that there is INFINITELY MORE TO GOD THAN WHAT WE'VE DISCOVERED!
I'm of the opinion that the reason the major religions seem to contradict each other is because of this reason!
A Parable in Paraphrase:
Four people were blindfolded and led into a room with an elephant. When they came out they were asked to report on what they found.
One said it was like the trunk of a tree, another said it was like an enormous leaf, the third said it was like a solid wall and the last one said it was more like a big snake.
Each was correct, but only in part. They were all relating accurately their experience of the same thing, from different perspectives. None of them had the whole picture, so their facts seemed to disagree with each other. Same with religion.
GOD is that entity/force/energy that makes up our universe. Any attempts by anyone or anything WITHIN that universe to describe that which MAKES UP the universe will be flawed from the start.
That being said.... any universe as large as ours is bound to be full of life.... and that life is just as much a "child of GOD" as humanity is (as are plants, animals, insects, bacteria, etc.)
Since that discipline (and those related) ARE
the point of the church, to eliminate it is to
essentially destroy the purpose of the church.
So do you believe that it would (for instance) be destructive to the Catholic Church if they decided to change the fundamental policy of disallowing women to be ordained?
Does it mean that Native Americans must be grateful to invaders for being allowed to have children?
No, it means that a warlike, conquering race of people (the so-called "Native Americans") was in turn conquered by a different, warlike race, who happened to be quite a bit better at it, with better weapons.
Stop whining. It's not like the Native Americans were living in peace and harmony with each other and nature. They killed, raped, kept slaves, etc. The European invaders were just more organized about it.
The artist may see $0.02 from a cd purchase you make.
That's $0.02 more than the artist is earning when you download the song from napster/napigator/gnutella/etc.
If 1,000,000 people buy his cd and he ONLY earns 2 cents a piece (as in your example) he ends up with $20,000... which isn't much for having sold a million copis, but is quite a bit more (say, $20,000 more!) than the 0 dollars he earned from all of your piracy.
While I agree that it is worthwhile to see a really good movie in the theater and a decent movie on DVD or VHS rather than a smaller free download, what about the tons of marginal movies out there? Unfortunately the studios do make a lot of movies that folks wouldn't pay for if they didn't have to.
My response would be that perhaps if we DID start downloading movies as an option, that perhaps those really LAME marginal movies you're speaking of would [gasp!] stop being made?
What harm would there be if people stopped churning out horrible, thrown-together plots, bad acting by bad actors, rehashed plot devices, etc? It might actually re-legitimize the hollywood moviemaking empire...
Unfortunately, we'd never get to see Britney Spears in her acting debut (unless she was nude) but I think that the overall improvement in the way moviemaking was approached would be well worth it (for the viewers AND the movie producers).
Yes, the LDS Church teachs that homosexuality is a sin. So do the Baptists. So do the Catholics.
Unfortunately for your argument (which is sound, and true) it is reasonably common knowledge that Card has a big problem with homosexuality... you can read about it in just about any of the articles he's written over time.
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist (or even a Linux Enthusiast:D) to read the blatent and hidden undertones in the above article. Given this new knowledge, do you think that it is at all possible -- consciously or unconsciously -- that Card did just such a thing (purposely make references between homosexuality and evil) as the original poster suggests?
There opened but there are nearly 200 of them in the set. Even assuming just regular retail prices for each one that's pretty close to 10000$ right there.
FYI --
With a little quick math ($10,000 / 200 = $50) I think that it's safe to say that to have purchased these originally would've been an order of magnitude cheaper. I know that some of them got a little expensive, but I doubt any but the most outrageous of the transformers ever got past the $25 mark, much less $50. And there were lots of them that could be had at $5-$8.
Also, there was no mention of gaming consoles. It would be interesting to see the distribution of video game consoles along with these numbers. I suspect even the dirt-poorest households have a game console (and a number of expensive games.)
Though I obviously own a computer, I have to say that this is specious reasoning, at best. Even the very-much-middle-class don't all have game consoles & expensive games. I certainly don't have one myself. Back about the time that SNES and Sega Genesis were coming out I managed to scrape up an 8bit nintendo system and castlevania... but even then, I only had 2 or 3 games EVER.
To assume that EVERY or even MOST lower income families are choosing to afford a game console is to ignore the reality. When you're dead broke and the creditors are calling daily, you have plenty to keep your mind occupied without a Playstation 2.
For the record, I wasn't specifically singling out the NRA as the cause of violence in schools. That would be just as ridiculous as saying "It's the games! It's the games!" I'm was trying to say that the NRA has at LEAST as much responsibility for fostering ideas about violence and weaponry as any video game, movie or internet site does. Singling out technology as the bad guy not only ignores the root cause of the problem -- leading to future problems -- but it also ignores pre-existing contributory factors (the NRA) in favor of new-fangled dangers (i.e. the internet, computer gaming).
And I suppose the NRA and pro-gun lobbies have absolutely NOTHING to do with the proliferation of guns in schools.
Parenting ought to belong to the realm of parents. If you're not willing to pay attention and respect to your children during their formative years and beyond, how can you possibly expect any government program or law to have any effect on them? If the parents themselves are giving up their responsibility to the government by saying "YOU MUST MAKE OUR CHILDREN RESPONSIBLE!" how can it possibly succeed? Children don't limit their learning to the few moral lessons that they are occassionally exposed to, they learn from every action (or inaction) of their parents, their community leaders and their heros.
If you want to fix these problems (which are the effect) you must deal with the underlying CAUSES, rather than trying to constantly invent new ways of battling the SYMPTOMS.
Cancer isn't cured by chemotherapy. It can be effective in TREATING cancer, but in order to be 100% effective, the cancer ITSELF must be REMOVED.
If we continue to come up with solutions to the SYMPTOMS of our societal illness, we will succeed only in changing the FORM in which these symptoms present themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
. Anybody who believes in a real God, not an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us" (nods to Yoda), will admit that we are not alone in the Universe.
Thanks for mentioning Yoda. It makes my response on-topic (since religion is off-topic, but star wars is ALWAYS on-topic).
I always took the "FORCE" of the Star Wars series to be the exact same thing as "GOD." They're both symbols for the unknown (and unknowable) forces that guide us and shape our reality. The only difference I see in the concept of GOD and the concept of FORCE is that many literal-minded religious people tend to think of GOD as being a person, which doesn't make much sense when you consider all the other forms of life that are not even remotely human. (Plants, other animals, insects, bacteria, etc.)
Besides, if GOD (a symbol) is really omnipresent and infinite, how could GOD be anything BUT an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us?"
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Hmm. Let me paraphrase a very wise man who said:
(That being said, this guy truely believed in GOD. Draw your own conclusions.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Thus we know that the idea of mental projection in the absence of projecting some 'thing' (e.g. photons) is a looser.
I suppose it's not at all possible that the 'thing'(e.g. photon-like) is something undiscovered by human scientists thus far? About a thousand years ago we would regularly 'bleed' people to release 'bad humours' that were keeping them from being well. If, at that point, someone had proposed that microscopic 'germs' were the real cause, they probably would've been told that such ideas were also the 'looser' [sic].
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
renegade? ... EWWWW .....
Back when my boards (Waste, Absolute Zero) were up, I almost exclusively ran Renegade. I checked out Ob/2 but found all the ASCII art (in the SYSOP MENUS!) really annoying. Renegade allowed me to easily customize the look of my bbs (new menus, new cursors, new everything) once a day or once a week. I actually had several menu sets up that would randomly switch between each caller. It was stable and reliable and fun.
The only complaint I ever had about renegade was that it didn't support WWIVNET, where all the good message nets existed. (FIDO sucked.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
'Massively multiplayer' doesn't apply to the text based games such as TradeWars and MUDs because those have always allowed any number of users to connect.
I think the confusion here is caused by your memory. Tradewars 2002 was a text based, trade oriented BBS RPG. The new game being proposed will be a Graphical game. It won't be text based anymore. You'll pilot CGI ships instead of extended ASCII characters.
As far as their "Massively Multiplayer" designation (which I won't comment on) I'll quote from the FAQ:
Now... I've never played everquest, but hundreds of thousands of people playing in a universe, seperated into small galaxies of >10,000 people... sounds pretty large scale to me.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
I've read about 50 posts so far in this discussion with people saying things like "I'm gonna clone Mel Gibson/Nat. Portman/etc. for a love doll" and sure, it was funny (mildly so, anyway) with post #1... but by post #50 I was no longer amused and no longer certain that people were TRYING to be funny.
You do realize that any clone will basically be a twin of the original person, not an identical individual with memories, experience, etc. intact.
Supposing you DID manage to get a scraping from Natalie Portman's DNA, you're still gonna have to sit around for another 18 years (except you pedophiles) before you'll be able to put your 'personal' Natalie into use... and unless you school her, teach her to walk, talk, etc., she'll be able to do little besides giggle in infantile glee or shriek in monkey-fear when she sees the uses you've got for her.
In short... cloning does NOT work the way it does in bad twilight zone episodes.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
You know, the link up above is a really worthwhile (and eye-popping) read on the sad state of affairs that is a major label recording contract, written by one of the big engineer/producers of the 90's, Steve Albini.
I highly recommend that you read it.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Please explain to me how ANYTHING (say, GOD) could at once be INFINITE (without boundaries) and yet NOT be somewhere (such as here, there or everywhere) or something (such as computer monitor or tree)...
If the tree and computer monitor (and the rest of creation) do NOT exist within GOD, where *DO* they exist? And how does this reconcile with GOD's INFINITE nature?
Your own bible begins thusly:
In the beginning there was GOD and VOID.
Ok.. now, Shakespeare may not be an authority you are willing to accept, but as King Lear said to Cordelia, "Nothing shall come of nothing."
If, in the beginning, there was only GOD, and then creation sprang into being... where did it spring from? And where did it spring to?
Ok. Next question.. If you can't possibly remove even a COMPUTER MONITOR from the list of "what exists within the scope of infinity" how do you propose to remove yourself? Or me?
If you have one thing here and one thing there and they are not parts of the same thing, neither of them can be said to be infinite, because infinity is necessarily inclusive of everything.
If GOD is infinite (as all major and most minor religions suggest) then there is no way for ANYTHING to exist, except out of GOD. But GOD can't LOSE substance... he's infinite. So any substance, whether it seems to be "computer monitor" or "hand" or "bible" is really just a part of that one glorious, infinite whole.
(Ever notice that everything -- stars, planets, plants, animals, computer monitors, etc -- are made up of the same stuff? The air you're breathing is composed of the VERY SAME MATERIAL that make up your computer monitor and your you.)
Since we're having fun quoting old books, here's some smack-down from Swami Vivekananda, in the early 1800s:
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Excuse me if this sounds somewhat foolish, but wouldn't 'real-time' be somewhat useless? A force that is breaking something may be continuous.
Excuse me if this sounds somewhat foolish, but wouldn't 'seatbelts' be somewhat useless? A car could hit you at 90 mph head-on.
(Even so, I'd still like the seatbelt just in case the car only hits me at 30 or 40.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
You are not "Living by the "rules" in the Bible" if you take the second half of this most basic rule without the first half
Jesus (Yeshua if you prefer) was speaking to the Hebrews and as such had to speak to the MASSES in a way that they could accept and understand, so he spoke to them about a god in the sky (like the Jehova/Yahweh "God of the Mountain" that they already worshiped) but also spoke to them of loving their neighbor as themselves. It's not a two-part rule, it's the same rule twice, just in a way that an unenlightened individual can understand. Let me translate for you:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Your neighbor and yourself have one big thing in common... SELF.
SELF=SOUL=GOD
GOD is infinite. Which is to say, anything that exists falls within GOD because there's no other way it can be. If you say GOD is over there and the universe is over here, then GOD isn't infinite. Infinity only allows ONE. If you have infinite this over here and infinite that over there... there is no infinity.
When you love GOD with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, you don't have any room for hate, greed, jealousy, anger. When you love your neighbor as yourself, you are showing that you recognise that GOD exists as the "observer" in each of us. That no human (no matter their status, intelligence or weakness) is lesser than any other, because all are merely reflections of one and the same thing.
Way back in the old testament we find out that one of GOD's names is "I AM"
as in...
I AM (THAT WHICH EXISTS)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
You don't seem to get it. Most of this country lives in urban centers.
.... Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago? Places like that? Last I checked, they were squarely rooted in the midwest. Oh! But you were overgeneralizing weren't you? You thought I was responding to YOUR percieved idea of what the midwest is like, and instead, I was saying something completely different!
Oh... urban centers such as
I was born in St. Louis. I have spent several years in Los Angeles. If you think that its a different world, you're fooling yourself. Are there ANY differences between a place like LA and St. Louis? Yes. They are, after all, different locations. But does that mean that the midwest is a largely unpopulated section of the country filled only with farmland and sharecroppers? No. I'm happy to inform you that there are MILLIONS of American citizens living and working in midwestern CITIES!
<sarcasm>Aww shucks, mr. cityman. Us dumb country folk just cainn't unnerstan' thing as good as you rich city slickers. Why just yestaday, it seems, we got ourselves a k-mart and a mcdonalds! </sarcasm>
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
nah dude, you have it wrong. that wasnt being racist at all you damn chink. now that was being racist. Get it?
Racism is not limited to words such as "chink," "wop," "Spic," "Nigger," etc. Racism is defining someone by their racial heritage... examples of racism:
"My buddy Joe is really cool for a black guy."
"I love to fuck chinese women, they're so EASY."
"I hate all you fucking whitebread american bastards."
Now, only my third example is the kind of thing YOU have defined as racism, but all three of my example statements involve classifying (or stereotyping) someone based on the singular criteria of their race.
It is just as much racism to say "White people are the best!" as it is to say "Black people are the worst!"
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Get rid of the hollywood bigwigs and the entire midwest goes bankrupt.
... lo and behold! The entire hollywood bigwig community goes bankrupt!
Of course, the reverse of your theory is also true... get rid of the midwest and there's nobody to watch the $50 million blockbuster summer movies, and then
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
or buy a vibrator and tape it to your mouse.
of course, this wouldn't be good for people in conservative homes, or people like me that have the computer in their bedroom. (I can deal with my 15 cooling fans, but a vibrator? woah!)
Wouldn't it be even MORE advantageous to the people who keep their computer in the bedroom? You wouldn't have to run down to the basement to get your vibrator when you were busy checking out the pr0n. Easy, instant access.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
What impact will this have on people that believe in god? This can be proof of the ability to have e.t. life. Not proof per se, but that its possible. Does anyone that reads slashdot even believe in god?
I have some ideas about GOD (a symbol) but i don't have any beliefs on the subject. If GOD is really infinite, there is no way a finite human mind can possibly hope to encapsulate that infinite being in a book, or creed, or any other set of rules. No matter how much we may be able to infer about GOD (still a symbol) we must rest assured that there is INFINITELY MORE TO GOD THAN WHAT WE'VE DISCOVERED!
I'm of the opinion that the reason the major religions seem to contradict each other is because of this reason!
A Parable in Paraphrase:
Four people were blindfolded and led into a room with an elephant. When they came out they were asked to report on what they found.
One said it was like the trunk of a tree, another said it was like an enormous leaf, the third said it was like a solid wall and the last one said it was more like a big snake.
Each was correct, but only in part. They were all relating accurately their experience of the same thing, from different perspectives. None of them had the whole picture, so their facts seemed to disagree with each other. Same with religion.
GOD is that entity/force/energy that makes up our universe. Any attempts by anyone or anything WITHIN that universe to describe that which MAKES UP the universe will be flawed from the start.
That being said.... any universe as large as ours is bound to be full of life.... and that life is just as much a "child of GOD" as humanity is (as are plants, animals, insects, bacteria, etc.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Since that discipline (and those related) ARE
the point of the church, to eliminate it is to
essentially destroy the purpose of the church.
So do you believe that it would (for instance) be destructive to the Catholic Church if they decided to change the fundamental policy of disallowing women to be ordained?
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Does it mean that Native Americans must be grateful to invaders for being allowed to have children?
No, it means that a warlike, conquering race of people (the so-called "Native Americans") was in turn conquered by a different, warlike race, who happened to be quite a bit better at it, with better weapons.
Stop whining. It's not like the Native Americans were living in peace and harmony with each other and nature. They killed, raped, kept slaves, etc. The European invaders were just more organized about it.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
The artist may see $0.02 from a cd purchase you make.
That's $0.02 more than the artist is earning when you download the song from napster/napigator/gnutella/etc.
If 1,000,000 people buy his cd and he ONLY earns 2 cents a piece (as in your example) he ends up with $20,000... which isn't much for having sold a million copis, but is quite a bit more (say, $20,000 more!) than the 0 dollars he earned from all of your piracy.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
While I agree that it is worthwhile to see a really good movie in the theater and a decent movie on DVD or VHS rather than a smaller free download, what about the tons of marginal movies out there? Unfortunately the studios do make a lot of movies that folks wouldn't pay for if they didn't have to.
My response would be that perhaps if we DID start downloading movies as an option, that perhaps those really LAME marginal movies you're speaking of would [gasp!] stop being made?
What harm would there be if people stopped churning out horrible, thrown-together plots, bad acting by bad actors, rehashed plot devices, etc? It might actually re-legitimize the hollywood moviemaking empire...
Unfortunately, we'd never get to see Britney Spears in her acting debut (unless she was nude) but I think that the overall improvement in the way moviemaking was approached would be well worth it (for the viewers AND the movie producers).
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Yes, the LDS Church teachs that homosexuality is a sin. So do the Baptists. So do the Catholics.
:D) to read the blatent and hidden undertones in the above article. Given this new knowledge, do you think that it is at all possible -- consciously or unconsciously -- that Card did just such a thing (purposely make references between homosexuality and evil) as the original poster suggests?
Unfortunately for your argument (which is sound, and true) it is reasonably common knowledge that Card has a big problem with homosexuality... you can read about it in just about any of the articles he's written over time.
Here's one:
The Hypocrites of Homosexuality - By Orson Scott Card
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist (or even a Linux Enthusiast
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
There opened but there are nearly 200 of them in the set. Even assuming just regular retail prices for each one that's pretty close to 10000$ right there.
FYI --
With a little quick math ($10,000 / 200 = $50) I think that it's safe to say that to have purchased these originally would've been an order of magnitude cheaper. I know that some of them got a little expensive, but I doubt any but the most outrageous of the transformers ever got past the $25 mark, much less $50. And there were lots of them that could be had at $5-$8.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Also, there was no mention of gaming consoles. It would be interesting to see the distribution of video game consoles along with these numbers. I suspect even the dirt-poorest households have a game console (and a number of expensive games.)
Though I obviously own a computer, I have to say that this is specious reasoning, at best. Even the very-much-middle-class don't all have game consoles & expensive games. I certainly don't have one myself. Back about the time that SNES and Sega Genesis were coming out I managed to scrape up an 8bit nintendo system and castlevania... but even then, I only had 2 or 3 games EVER.
To assume that EVERY or even MOST lower income families are choosing to afford a game console is to ignore the reality. When you're dead broke and the creditors are calling daily, you have plenty to keep your mind occupied without a Playstation 2.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
For the record, I wasn't specifically singling out the NRA as the cause of violence in schools. That would be just as ridiculous as saying "It's the games! It's the games!" I'm was trying to say that the NRA has at LEAST as much responsibility for fostering ideas about violence and weaponry as any video game, movie or internet site does. Singling out technology as the bad guy not only ignores the root cause of the problem -- leading to future problems -- but it also ignores pre-existing contributory factors (the NRA) in favor of new-fangled dangers (i.e. the internet, computer gaming).
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
And I suppose the NRA and pro-gun lobbies have absolutely NOTHING to do with the proliferation of guns in schools.
Parenting ought to belong to the realm of parents. If you're not willing to pay attention and respect to your children during their formative years and beyond, how can you possibly expect any government program or law to have any effect on them? If the parents themselves are giving up their responsibility to the government by saying "YOU MUST MAKE OUR CHILDREN RESPONSIBLE!" how can it possibly succeed? Children don't limit their learning to the few moral lessons that they are occassionally exposed to, they learn from every action (or inaction) of their parents, their community leaders and their heros.
If you want to fix these problems (which are the effect) you must deal with the underlying CAUSES, rather than trying to constantly invent new ways of battling the SYMPTOMS.
Cancer isn't cured by chemotherapy. It can be effective in TREATING cancer, but in order to be 100% effective, the cancer ITSELF must be REMOVED.
If we continue to come up with solutions to the SYMPTOMS of our societal illness, we will succeed only in changing the FORM in which these symptoms present themselves.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
There have been multiple cases of dry oil wells spontaneously filling up, suggesting there is more oil than we know of.
References? Links? Anything? I'd really be curious to see if this is true (or theoretically sound) rather than unfounded allegations.
(Not flaming you. Genuinely curious.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)