Home » The PARIS Forums » PARIS: Main » Terrorist plot foiled
| Re: Terrorist plot foiled...Christians has Lost focus [message #71248 is a reply to message #71241] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 06:04   |
LaMont
Messages: 828
Registered: October 2005
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Senior Member |
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ons better than a system based on
any one religion (AKA a theocracy).
There are other issues surrounding religions, such as the many examples
of selfless dedication to helping others on the one hand, and hijacked
religions used to legitimize earthly power structures in other cases.
Dedric, I look forward to talking with you about the positives and
negatives of various religions, and where a moral culture ought to go
from here, whenever we next get together.
Cheers,
-Jamie
http://www.JamieKrutz.com
Dedric Terry wrote:
> Hey Jimmy,
>
> No doubt one can be a good person without believing in God - there are tons
> of great people with no faith, or very little. That in and of itself tells
> me there must be a God so even non-believers would have a strong sense of
> right and wrong on a societal and even global level.
>
> To walk through some thoughts: with no God, or higher reference point, what
> would be considered moral, or at least good? What would one use to decide
> what is right and wrong?
>
> Laws? Most would agree that we can't legislate morality now, so with no
> basis for what morality is, why would we even bother with laws since
> everyone would make their own choices anyway?
>
> Intellect? That would simply depend on what one chose to accept as
> "intelligent" thought, based completely on opinion.
>
> Reasoning and Logic? Logic is determined by a hypothesis that has a proven
> outcome in a given situation. Change the situation, and the reasoning or
> logic behind the "right" or "wrong" could easily change.
>
> Experience? What if one's experience is filled with hatred, abuse, anger
> and violence, or worse? Then someone would have to decide whose experience
> we would use as a reference point. There would be no guarantee that person
> or persons had experiences that would be best for the good of the whole.
>
> Survival instinct? If it were a reference point, then stealing, lying,
> cheating and even killing would be perfectly justified as those can be means
> of survival.
>
> Why would right and wrong even exist? I would think that the differences
> between societies' definitions of right and wrong, assuming societies even
> existed, would be so drastic we would never have ventured into any form of
> inter-cultural/inter-geographic interaction, much less relationships,
> diplomacy, collaboration, trade, and open travel.
>
> As long as "morals" are only relative to each individual, they aren't
> absolute morals that would last longer than the time it takes to make the
> choice. We would just have 6.5 billion opinions. There would only be an
> ever changing perspective on what seems to "make sense" at the time, and
> based on this premise, even "making sense" would vary from person to person,
> day to day, minute to minute. In that case, our prisons would either be
> filled with innocent people simply judged "wrong" at the time because their
> choices didn't match the preferences of the majority; or we wouldn't have
> prisons, or likely even organized societies.
>
> But is the majority always right? How would we know if there were no
> absolutes that supercede the majority in some form?
>
> If there were no right and wrong, there would be no consequences of either,
> or at least we wouldn't view the outcome as a good or bad consequence - it
> would just be another event in time.
>
> But by grace and as a gift of freedom, God gave us a choice, both in whether
> to believe in Him and whether to make right or wrong decisions. With moral
> absolutes (God's word) as a reference we have a way to evaluate drastically
> differing situations on an equivalent basis; with consistency in reasoning
> and compassion; by choice and instinct rather than puppetry. Even when we
> choose to do wrong, He is willing to forgive us. Without that option to
> choose, balanced by God's grace and forgiveness, there would be no power in
> choosing to believe in Him. That's what makes God a personal and loving God
> rather than a dictator or puppet master.
>
> Odd as it may seem to anyone who doesn't believe, I can see God in the way
> that 1) we as a group of intelligent people on this forum can discuss
> completely opposing opinions and still care enough to consider insulting,
> belittling, slandering and hating one another an intolerable concept; and 2)
> in all likelihood agree that peace and compassion completely
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71249 is a reply to message #71243] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 06:08 |
DC
Messages: 722
Registered: July 2005
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Senior Member |
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trump greed and
> power in importance to life and survival together on this planet.
>
> Regards,
> Dedric
>
> On 9/17/06 7:12 PM, in article 450df091@linux, "Uptown Jimmy"
> <johnson314@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> The idea that one needs to believe in a god in order to have a strong morals
>> is absurd, I think.
>>
>> Jimmy
>>
>>
>> "Dedric Terry" <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote in message
>> news:C1325038.358D%dterry@keyofd.net...
>>> Gene -
>>>
>>> You probably didn't realize it (so no offense), but your response pretty
>>> much confirms my assertion that the tendency of our country and even the
>>> world society, is to place blame for religious conflict, violence and
>>> religiously motivated terrorism anywhere but with the single largest
>>> growing, and currently most violent religion in the world. We ignore car
>>> bombings, suicide bombers, torched churches, thousands of tortured and
>>> murdered, exiled and ostracized people in favor of blaming the
>>> administration for anything and everything, as if Bush made the Pope quote
>> a
>>> Byzantine emperor by going to war in Iraq.
>>>
>>> Islam isn't the passive, peaceful, non-threatening, all-accepting religion
>>> our country seems to blindly want to believe. Some western Muslims might
>>> be, but just ask anyone who tried to believe in anything else in many of
>> the
>>> conservative Islamic countries of the world. I know, have talked to, and
>>> have heard missionaries to these countries speak - it's a different world
>>> from the free discussions and widely varying opinions we have here.
>> People
>>> die for converting to anything else, or their families do. At best, their
>>> families disown them and they sneak out of the country under threat of
>>> death. In fact it's the exact opposite of the "freedom" our country
>>> continually pushes the limits of. Odd that we would turn on our own
>> country
>>> in favor of supporting, or at least turning a blind eye to this kind of
>>> ideology, somehow believing that is the more politically correct thing to
>>> do.
>>>
>>> The problem I see isn't religion, but a lack of faith in God, and hence
>> any
>>> sense of direction and moral guidance. God gives us the choice to believe
>>> or not. Based on documents of their activities - in the name of Allah the
>>> 9/11 terrorists pretty much broke every one of the 10 commandments in 24
>>> hours. That may seem a trivial or even silly fact, but there is a sad,
>> and
>>> frightening irony there. Faith in God isn't what one should fear - it's
>>> believing in anything that conveniently appeases one's personal whims that
>>> is the true danger.... the terrorists proved that in one day. That also
>>> includes believing in nothing.
>>>
>>> As Blaise Pascal once said (paraphrased): if one believes in God and is
>>> wrong, at worst one has lived a good live and had some false hope as a
>> sense
>>> of comfort along the way; if one doesn't believe and is wrong, then at
>>> best, all is lost for eternity. This is the paradox that we should be
>>> considering, a
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71251 is a reply to message #71246] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 06:21 |
Nil
Messages: 245
Registered: March 2007
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Senior Member |
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but fail to see any validity in
>>> believing a God that gave us the very moral compass to maintain the
>> balance
>>> that kind of choice affords us. In essence we put our trust in the very
>>> thing we prove day in and day out to be one of the most fallible
>>> characteristics of humanity - political and relativistic ideology.
>>>
>>> I guess I ignored my own first comment....sorry about that.
>>>
>>> I should get back to mourning NI Battery 2's destruction of 10 hours of
>> work
>>> :-((....
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Dedric
>>>
>>> On 9/16/06 9:09 PM, in article 450cbc70$1@linux, "gene Lennon"
>>> <glennon@NOSPmyrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dedric Terry <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote:
>>>>> I don't want to start another religious or political thread -...
>>>>
>>>> These are frightening times. While the true neocons in the current
>>>> administration
>>>> have had a variety of political, financial and power-based reasons for
>>>> perusing
>>>> the war against Iraq, the president has had an even scarier motivation.
>>>>
>>>> Religion.
>>>>
>>>> If you missed it, this week Bush has announced the "Third Great
>> Awakening"
>>>> of the international religious struggle. This is a good thing as he sees
>>>> it and it has been partially brought on by the new fight against
>> terrorists
>>>> (Translation - Due to his good work in God's name). A war that he
>> depicts
>>>> as "a confrontation between good and evil."
>>>> In 2001 he used the word "crusade" and got into quite a bit of trouble
>> (as
>>>> has the Pope), but he seems to have the gloves off now.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone imagine a worse direction for the world to be headed?
>>>>
>>>> Of course he also believes in the Rapture, so things could easily go
>> down
>>>> hill from here.
>>>>
>>>> More on the "Third Awakening":
>>>>
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09 /12/AR2006091201
>> 59
>>>> 4_pf.html
>>>>
>>>> Gene
>>>>
>>
>
`Kind of funny, Kelly sings with my buddy Ralph Saenz from The Atomic Punks
and Metal School. She's no longer a rock and roll virgin.
http://us.video.aol.com/video.index.adp?pmmsid=1704499Hi Jamie,
While those are certainly good examples of the common definition of faith,,
we shouldn't confuse faith in God with trust that event B will follow event
A. The latter can also easily be attributed to learned behavior. But not
all aspects of faith in God can be seen or experienced.
Hebrews 11:1
What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going
to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.
And no doubt that can apply to a falling guitar pick, though I doubt you
hope that will happen during a gig. ;-)
How does one believe that there is life after death though, or that God is
sovereign even over devastating situations? That is where the faith I refer
to comes into play. And I would also propose that the same sense of faith
we use to start a business, or enter into marriage, or believe that we'll
see the next day, is part of the desire and drive that God has designed in
us to propel us forward, and draw us to Him as well. It is a part of being
human - a feeling, thinking, growing, individual.
The point was that moral absolutes aren't based on religion, and wouldn't be
moral absolutes if they were. The idea of God-defined absolutes excludes
the possibility that man could create or change that absolute.
By saying that man creates absolutes based on his religions says that his
religion is false (created by that man), and therefore, no belief has any
absolutes, and all beliefs are relative only to a single individual at a
single point in time. We could extrapolate that to whether murder, rape and
other acts we consider "hideous", but would have to conclude that all are
right and none are wrong. The reason being that we would only be viewing
them through our own created "right and wrong" and not anyone else's. That
would also extrapolate to terrorists that kill people believing that it is
Allah's will to destroy those that oppose them. But obviously we don't
believe that is "right" any more than we believe Charles Manson was "right"
to do what he did.
So where do we get the foundation for a "fair justice system" and "common
sense"? If we have no reference point, then we must have just made it up.
In that case, it's only relative to our perspective, and is neither right or
wrong to anyone else, and maybe not all of the time for us either. If we
created right and wrong, and we aren't perfect, then there is nothing
stopping us from changing the rules when it suits us individually,
regardless of the impact on others. Without that sense of governing
authority that outlasts our governments, what holds us to be by very nature
mostly "good", by most any definition?
What makes all of our choices seem to follow a similar core value system?
If we have no common thread of belief in what is right and wrong, then why
do most people (and likely all, even extremist terrorists) prefer peace to
war; love instead of hate; fairness instead of injustice; truth instead of
deceit? If there is nothing connecting us and superceding our own locally
relative decision process, then how could we have any sense of "common
sense", much less right and wrong?
We see the evidence of these everyday. We easily agree as a world culture
for the most part (excepting obvious deviations), that murder is wrong;
stealing is wrong; laws should be obeyed, not abolished; etc. That is the
evidence of unseen, never globally written in stone, but always pervasive
moral absolutes. So in reality we all have faith that moral absolutes do
exist, and if no individual created them (by the hypothesis that relativism
would make them irrelevant), and all mankind just happen to adopt and hear
about them without actual communication to propagate those beliefs, where
did they come from if not from God?
Regards,
Dedric
On 9/17/06 11:14 PM, in article 450e2955@linux, "Jamie K"
<Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote:
>
> Faith is complete trust or confidence in something or someone. Religious
> faith is one form of faith but not the only definition of "faith."
>
> For example I have faith that if I drop a guitar pick it will find its
> way to the floor based on the gravita
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled...Christians has Lost focus [message #71252 is a reply to message #71248] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 06:31 |
DC
Messages: 722
Registered: July 2005
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Senior Member |
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tional attraction it has to the
> planet. I have faith that I'll breathe my next breath, that I'll see
> tomorrow morning. I have faith that other people are put together much
> like I am and that I can therefore relate to other folks.
>
> Without faith, people would not invest money. Without faith people would
> not vote. Without faith people would not start businesses, hire other
> people, raise children. Without faith people would not ride trains, fly
> in planes or drive cars. Without faith no one would investigate
> scientific questions about reality.
>
> While you can clearly have faith without religion, you cannot have
> religion without faith. Religion depends on faith that one or more
> deities (good and sometimes bad) exist, that their associated stories
> actually occurred, and often, that there is some sort of afterlife.
>
> However, religious people believe in a variety of different deities.
> Even those who believe in the same deity disagree, sometimes violently,
> about the nature of their deity. Religions sometimes even disagree about
> the nature of reality. If you want to base morality strictly on
> religion, and you look around, you'll notice that religion can be a
> somewhat chaotic basis unless...
>
> Ah, you might say, I want to base morality on MY r
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71253 is a reply to message #71251] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 06:38 |
DC
Messages: 722
Registered: July 2005
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Senior Member |
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eligion. Well, you
> just dissed the majority of religions. No problem because THEY ARE
> WRONG. And people who believe in those religions may just be saying the
> same thing about you and your religion. For those religions who are not
> tolerant of other ideas, you may just have started a war.
>
> So perhaps it's BETTER, in our time, to have a system of justice that is
> NOT based on a religion. But one which guarantees everyone the right to
> practice the religion of their choice, guarantees other freedoms such as
> we in the USA do in our Bill of Rights, encourages honesty and
> integrity, while enforcing some common sense limits such as no human
> sacrifices, a minimum age for marriage, no inces
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71256 is a reply to message #71244] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 09:08 |
Dedric Terry
Messages: 788
Registered: June 2007
|
Senior Member |
|
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gt; http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>
>
> Dedric Terry wrote:
>> Hey Jimmy,
>>
>> No doubt one can be a good person without believing in God - there are tons
>> of great people with no faith, or very little. That in and of itself tells
>> me there must be a God so even non-believers would have a strong sense of
>> right and wrong on a societal and even global level.
>>
>> To walk through some thoughts: with no God, or higher reference point, what
>> would be considered moral, or at least good? What would one use to decide
>> what is right and wrong?
>>
>> Laws? Most would agree that we can't legislate morality now, so with no
>> basis for what morality is, why would we even bother with laws since
>> everyone would make their own choices anyway?
>>
>> Intellect? That would simply depend on what one chose to accept as
>> "intelligent" thought, based completely on opinion.
>>
>> Reasoning and Logic? Logic is determined by a hypothesis that has a proven
>> outcome in a given situation. Change the situation, and the reasoning or
>> logic behind the "right" or "wrong" could easily change.
>>
>> Experience? What if one's experience is filled with hatred, abuse, anger
>> and violence, or worse? Then someone would have to decide whose experience
>> we would use as a reference point. There would be no guarantee that person
>> or persons had experiences that would be best for the good of the whole.
>>
>> Survival instinct? If it were a reference point, then stealing, lying,
>> cheating and even killing would be perfectly justified as those can be means
>> of survival.
>>
>> Why would right and wrong even exist? I would think that the differences
>> between societies' definitions of right and wrong, assuming societies even
>> existed, would be so drastic we would never have ventured into any form of
>> inter-cultural/inter-geographic interaction, much less relationships,
>> diplomacy, collaboration, trade, and open travel.
>>
>> As long as "morals" are only relative to each individual, they aren't
>> absolute morals that would last longer than the time it takes to make the
>> choice. We would just have 6.5 billion opinions. There would only be an
>> ever changing perspective on what seems to "make sense" at the time, and
>> based on this premise, even "making sense" would vary from person to person,
>> day to day, minute to minute. In that case, our prisons would either be
>> filled with innocent people simply judged "wrong" at the time because their
>> choices didn't match the preferences of the majority; or we wouldn't have
>> prisons, or likely even organized societies.
>>
>> But is the majority always right? How would we know if there were no
>> absolutes that supercede the majority in some form?
>>
>> If there were no right and wrong, there would be no consequences of either,
>> or at least we wouldn't view the outcome as a good or bad consequence - it
>> would just be another event in time.
>>
>> But by grace and as a gift of freedom, God gave us a choice, both in whether
>> to believe in Him and whether to make right or wrong decisions. With moral
>> absolutes (God's word) as a reference we have a way to evaluate drastically
>> differing situations on an equivalent basis; with consistency in reasoning
>> and compassion; by choice and instinct rather than puppetry. Even when we
>> choose to do wrong, He is willing to forgive us. Without that option to
>> choose, balanced by God's grace and forgiveness, there would be no power in
>> choosing to believe in Him. That's what makes God a personal and loving God
>> rather than a dictator or puppet master.
>>
>> Odd as it may seem to anyone who doesn't believe, I can see God in the way
>> that 1) we as a group of intelligent people on this forum can discuss
>> completely opposing opinions and still care enough to consider insulting,
>> belittling, slandering and hating one another an intolerable concept; and 2)
>> in all likelihood agree that peace and compassion completely trump greed and
>> power in importance to life and survival together on this planet.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Dedric
>>
>> On 9/17/06 7:12 PM, in article 450df091@linux, "Uptown Jimmy"
>> <johnson314@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>
>>> The idea that one needs to believe in a god in order to have a strong morals
>>> is absurd, I think.
>>>
>>> Jimmy
>>>
>>>
>>> "Dedric Terry" <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote in message
>>> news:C1325038.358D%dterry@keyofd.net...
>>>> Gene -
>>>>
>>>> You probably didn't realize it (so no offense), but your response pretty
>>>> much confirms my assertion that the tendency of our country and even the
>>>> world society, is to place blame for religious conflict, violence and
>>>> religiously motivated terrorism anywhere but with the single largest
>>>> growing, and currently most violent religion in the world. We ignore car
>>>> bombings, suicide bombers, torched churches, thousands of tortured and
>>>> murdered, exiled and ostracized people in favor of blaming the
>>>> administration for anything and everything, as if Bush made the Pope quote
>>> a
>>>> Byzantine emperor by going to war in Iraq.
>>>>
>>>> Islam isn't the passive, peaceful, non-threatening, all-accepting religion
>>>> our country seems to blindly want to believe. Some western Muslims might
>>>> be, but just ask anyone who tried to believe in anything else in many of
>>> the
>>>> conservative Islamic countries of the world. I know, have talked to, and
>>>> have heard missionaries to these countries speak - it's a different world
>>>> from the free discussions and widely varying opinions we have here.
>>> People
>>>> die for converting to anything else, or their families do. At best, their
>>>> families disown them and they sneak out of the country under threat of
>>>> death. In fact it's the exact opposite of the "freedom" our country
>>>> continually pushes the limits of. Odd that we would turn on our own
>>> country
>>>> in favor of supporting, or at least turning a blind eye to this kind of
>>>> ideology, somehow believing that is the more politically correct thing to
>>>> do.
>&g
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled...Christians has Lost focus [message #71257 is a reply to message #71238] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 09:17 |
Deej [1]
Messages: 2149
Registered: January 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
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t;>>
>>>> The problem I see isn't religion, but a lack of faith in God, and hence
>>> any
>>>> sense of direction and moral guidance. God gives us the choice to believe
>>>> or not. Based on documents of their activities - in the name of Allah the
>>>> 9/11 terrorists pretty much broke every one of the 10 commandments in 24
>>>> hours. That may seem a trivial or even silly fact, but there is a sad,
>>> and
>>>> frightening irony there. Faith in God isn't what one should fear - it's
>>>> believing in anything that conveniently appeases one's personal whims that
>>>> is the true danger.... the terrorists proved that in one day. That also
>>>> includes believing in nothing.
>>>>
>>>> As Blaise Pascal once said (paraphrased): if one believes in God and is
>>>> wrong, at worst one has lived a good live and had some false hope as a
>>> sense
>>>> of comfort along the way; if one doesn't believe and is wrong, then at
>>>> best, all is lost for eternity. This is the paradox that we should be
>>>> considering, and yet the most fear-inducing thought is that the President
>>>> might believe in something other than nothing. Is no belief really better
>>>> than belief? What reference point for right and wrong accompanies
>>> disbelief
>>>> in anything higher than one's own decisions? What reference point for
>>>> respect for other people's beliefs accompanies a lack of belief in any
>>>> guideline for living life and having respect and compassion for others?
>>>>
>>>> It isn't the administration's fault that the Pope quoted a guy Islam
>>> doesn't
>>>> like just because he called like he saw it - something we do on this forum
>>>> every single day, ironically. It also isn't Christianity's intent to take
>>>> over the world, or the government. Far from it. The only goal is to give
>>>> people a chance to decide. Yet, those that want to decide to not believe
>>>> would rather take that right away and remove Christianity from public
>>> view.
>>>> The only way to force someone to remove their belief from public in a
>>>> country that promotes the freedom to believe as one wishes, is to outlaw
>>> it.
>>>> Yet another paradox.
>>>>
>>>> Through our short sighted political glasses we want to see the world as a
>>>> black and white, free-will, partisan vote where one's party always wins
>>> and
>>>> the decisions are always in our favor, but fail to see any validity in
>>>> believing a God that gave us the very moral compass to maintain the
>>> balance
>>>> that kind of choice affords us. In essence we put our trust in the very
>>>> thing we prove day in and day out to be one of the most fallible
>>>> characteristics of humanity - political and relativistic ideology.
>>>>
>>>> I guess I ignored my own first comment....sorry about that.
>>>>
>>>> I should get back to mourning NI Battery 2's destruction of 10 hours of
>>> work
>>>> :-((....
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Dedric
>>>>
>>>> On 9/16/06 9:09 PM, in article 450cbc70$1@linux, "gene Lennon"
>>>> <glennon@NOSPmyrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dedric Terry <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote:
>>>>>> I don't want to start another religious or political thread -...
>>>>>
>>>>> These are frightening times. While the true neocons in the current
>>>>> administration
>>>>> have had a variety of political, financial and power-based reasons for
>>>>> perusing
>>>>> the war against Iraq, the president has had an even scarier motivation.
>>>>>
>>>>> Religion.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you missed it, this week Bush has announced the "Third Great
>>> Awakening"
>>>>> of the international religious struggle. This is a good thing as he sees
>>>>> it and it has been partially brought on by the new fight against
>>> terrorists
>>>>> (Translation - Due to his good work in God's name). A war that he
>>> depicts
>>>>> as "a confrontation between good and evil."
>>>>> In 2001 he used the word "crusade" and got into quite a bit of trouble
>>> (as
>>>>> has the Pope), but he seems to have the gloves off now.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can anyone imagine a worse direction for the world to be headed?
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course he also believes in the Rapture, so things could easily go
>>> down
>>>>> hill from here.
>>>>>
>>>>> More on the "Third Awakening":
>>>>>
>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09 /12/AR2006091201
>>> 59
>>>>> 4_pf.html
>>>>>
>>>>> Gene
>>>>>
>>>
>>
> `He wrote the software program that MRI machines are using these days. Very
interesting guy. I'm mastering a project for his wife. He was pretty
interested in the Paris program. His wife is pretty well known in the LA
music community and he digs this stuff. I may ask him if he could write a
delay compensation applet for Paris. He really got a chuckle out of
Frankencomp.......said he's built a few similar monstrosities himself. They
will be back over here tomorrow night.
;o)My point is that faith is necessary for life, with or without religion.
Faith in a deity, faith in an afterlife, these are certainly examples of
faith. My point is that faith is not exclusive to religion.
Nor is a moral basis, a system of justice - these are necessary for
civilization, again with or without religion. Religion is fairly useful
in construction such a system, to the point that religions have been
invented to help cement power and define social organization. But that
doesn't mean a religion, or a universally acknowledged deity, is
required for that role.
It may be that you are having trouble groking the idea of morality
without a deity because you have so tightly associated the two in your
life, which is totally understandable. But what you propose is begging
the question. Others can make the distinction, and maybe it's worth the
effort to understand why.
There are many perspectives. For example a social libertarian
perspective. You own yourself. What you do with yourself is your choice
until and unless it interferes with someone else's ownership of their
own person. You can derive the rest from there. This is a pretty strong
start which certainly can allow for a law-based free society, including
religious freedom.
We are into a deep subject which is better discussed in person when
people are willing to both talk and listen, as I have faith we are. :^)
I may be missing some of your intended points and I suspect we may be
talking past each other somewhat in email. So since we don't live all
that far apart, let's get together soon, explore the topic over a beer,
and see what we come up with.
Cheers,
-Jamie
http://www.JamieKrutz.com
Dedric Terry wrote:
> Hi Jamie,
>
> While those are certainly good examples of the common definition of faith,,
> we shouldn't confuse faith in God with trust that event B will follow event
> A. The latter can also easily be attributed to learned behavior. But not
> all aspects of faith in God can be seen or experienced.
>
> Hebrews 11:1
> What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going
> to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.
>
> And no doubt that can apply to a falling guitar pick, though I doubt you
> hope that will happen during a gig. ;-)
>
> How does one believe that there is life after death though, or that God is
> sovereign even over devastating situations? That is where the faith I refer
> to comes into play. And I would also propose that the same sense of faith
> we use to start a business, or enter into marriage, or believe that we'll
> see the next day, is part of the desire and drive that God has designed in
> us to propel us forward, and draw us to Him as well. It is a part of being
> human - a feeling, thinking, growing, individual.
>
> The point was that moral absolutes aren't based on religion, and wouldn't be
> moral absolutes if they were. The idea of God-defined absolutes excludes
> the possibility that man could create or change that absolute.
>
> By saying that man creates absolutes based on his religions says that his
> religion is false (created by that man), and therefore, no belief has any
> absolutes, and all beliefs are relative only to a single individual at a
> single point in time. We could extrapolate that to whether murder, rape and
> other acts we consider "hideous", but would have to conclude that all are
> right and none are wrong. The reason being that we would only be viewing
> them through our own created "right and wrong" and not anyone else's. That
> would also extrapolate to terrorists that kill people believing that it is
> Allah's will to destroy those that oppose them. But obviously we don't
> believe that is "right" any more than we believe Charles Manson was "right"
> to do what he did.
>
> So where do we get the foundation for a "fair justice system" and "common
> sense"? If we have no reference point, then we must have just made it up.
> In that case, it's only relative to our perspective, and is neither right or
> wrong to anyone else, and maybe not all of the time for us either. If we
> created right a
|
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71258 is a reply to message #71246] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 09:26 |
Deej [1]
Messages: 2149
Registered: January 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
nd wrong, and we aren't perfect, then there is nothing
> stopping us from changing the rules when it suits us individually,
> regardless of the impact on others. Without that sense of governing
> authority that outlasts our governments, what holds us to be by very nature
> mostly "good", by most any definition?
>
> What makes all of our choices seem to follow a similar core value system?
> If we have no common thread of belief in what is right and wrong, then why
> do most people (and likely all, even extremist terrorists) prefer peace to
> war; love instead of hate; fairness instead of injustice; truth instead of
> deceit? If there is nothing connecting us and superceding our own locally
> relative decision process, then how could we have any sense of "common
> sense", much less right and wrong?
>
> We see the evidence of these everyday. We easily agree as a world culture
> for the most part (excepting obvious deviations), that murder is wrong;
> stealing is wrong; laws should be obeyed, not abolished; etc. That is the
> evidence of unseen, never globally written in stone, but always pervasive
> moral absolutes. So in reality we all have faith that moral absolutes do
> exist, and if no individual created them (by the hypothesis that relativism
> would make them irrelevant), and all mankind just happen to adopt and hear
> about them without actual communication to propagate those beliefs, where
> did they come from if not from God?
>
> Regards,
> Dedric
>
> On 9/17/06 11:14 PM, in article 450e2955@linux, "Jamie K"
> <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote:
>
>> Faith is complete trust or confidence in something or someone. Religious
>> faith is one form of faith but not the only definition of "faith."
>>
>> For example I have faith that if I drop a guitar pick it will find its
>> way to the floor based on the gravitational attraction it has to the
>> planet. I have faith that I'll breathe my next breath, that I'll see
>> tomorrow morning. I have faith that other people are put together much
>> like I am and that I can therefore relate to other folks.
>>
>> Without faith, people would not invest money. Without faith people would
>> not vote. Without faith people would not start businesses, hire other
>> people, raise children. Without faith people would not ride trains, fly
>> in planes or drive cars. Without faith no one would investigate
>> scientific questions about reality.
>>
>> While you can clearly have faith without religion, you cannot have
>> religion without faith. Religion depends on faith that one or more
>> deities (good and sometimes bad) exist, that their associated stories
>> actually occurred, and often, that there is some sort of afterlife.
>>
>> However, religious people believe in a variety of different deities.
>> Even those who believe in the same deity disagree, sometimes violently,
>> about the nature of their deity. Religions sometimes even disagree about
>> the nature of reality. If you want to base morality strictly on
>> religion, and you look around, you'll notice that religion can be a
>> somewhat chaotic basis unless...
>>
>> Ah, you might say, I want to base morality on MY religion. Well, you
>> just dissed the majority of religions. No problem because THEY ARE
>> WRONG. And people who believe in those religions may just be saying the
>> same thing about you and your religion. For those religions who are not
>> tolerant of other ideas, you may just have started a war.
>>
>> So perhaps it's BETTER, in our time, to have a system of justice that is
>> NOT based on a religion. But one which guarantees everyone the right to
>> practice the religion of their choice, guarantees other freedoms such as
>> we in the USA do in our Bill of Rights, encourages honesty and
>> integrity, while enforcing some common sense limits such as no human
>> sacrifices, a minimum age for marriage, no incest, no slavery, no
>> murder, no rape, no stealing, those sorts of things.
>>
>> What is viewed as morality beyond a fair justice system and common sense
>> rules of behavior can be left to each freely chosen religion to sort
>> out, like whether to restrict diet in some way, whether to wear a
>> certain type of clothing, how to pray, etc. But none of these additional
>> practices should be imposed on society as a whole.
>>
>> The Golden Rule may also be of use as a basic moral foundation.
>>
>> So yes, you can have a moral system, one that BTW protects the freedom
>> to practice religious beliefs (or not), without basing it on any one
>> religion. And it can protect all religions better than a system based on
>> any one religion (AKA a theocracy).
>>
>> There are other issues surrounding religions, such as the many examples
>> of selfless dedication to helping others on the one hand, and hijacked
>> religions used to legitimize earthly power structures in other cases.
>> Dedric, I look forward to talking with you about the positives and
>> negatives of various religions, and where a moral culture ought to go
>> from here, when
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled...Christians has Lost focus [message #71259 is a reply to message #71252] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 09:57 |
LaMont
Messages: 828
Registered: October 2005
|
Senior Member |
|
|
ever we next get together.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -Jamie
>> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>>
>>
>> Dedric Terry wrote:
>>> Hey Jimmy,
>>>
>>> No doubt one can be a good person without believing in God - there are tons
>>> of great people with no faith, or very little. That in and of itself tells
>>> me there must be a God so even non-believers would have a strong sense of
>>> right and wrong on a societal and even global level.
>>>
>>> To walk through some thoughts: with no God, or higher reference point, what
>>> would be considered moral, or at least good? What would one use to decide
>>> what is right and wrong?
>>>
>>> Laws? Most would agree that we can't legislate morality now, so with no
>>> basis for what morality is, why would we even bother with laws since
>>> everyone would make their own choices anyway?
>>>
>>> Intellect? That would simply depend on what one chose to accept as
>>> "intelligent" thought, based completely on opinion.
>>>
>>> Reasoning and Logic? Logic is determined by a hypothesis that has a proven
>>> outcome in a given situation. Change the situation, and the reasoning or
>>> logic behind the "right" or "wrong" could easily change.
>>>
>>> Experience? What if one's experience is filled with hatred, abuse, anger
>>> and violence, or worse? Then someone would have to decide whose experience
|
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71260 is a reply to message #71256] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 10:09 |
LaMont
Messages: 828
Registered: October 2005
|
Senior Member |
|
|
>>> we would use as a reference point. There would be no guarantee that person
>>> or persons had experiences that would be best for the good of the whole.
>>>
>>> Survival instinct? If it were a reference point, then stealing, lying,
>>> cheating and even killing would be perfectly justified as those can be means
>>> of survival.
>>>
>>> Why would right and wrong even exist? I would think that the differences
>>> between societies' definitions of right and wrong, assuming societies even
>>> existed, would be so drastic we would never have ventured into any form of
>>> inter-cultural/inter-geographic interaction, much less relationships,
>>> diplomacy, collaboration, trade, and open travel.
>>>
>>> As long as "morals" are only relative to each individual, they aren't
>>> absolute morals that would last longer than the time it takes to make the
>>> choice. We would just have 6.5 billion opinions. There would only be an
>>> ever changing perspective on what seems to "make sense" at the time, and
>>> based on this premise, even "making sense" would vary from person to person,
>>> day to day, minute to minute. In that case, our prisons would either be
>>> filled with innocent people simply judged "wrong" at the time because their
>>> choices didn't match the preferences of the majority; or we wouldn't have
>>> prisons, or likely even organized societies.
>>>
>>> But is the majority always right? How would we know if there were no
>>> absolutes that supercede the majority in some form?
>>>
>>> If there were no right and wrong, there would be no consequences of either,
>>> or at least we wouldn't view the outcome as a good or bad consequence - it
>>> would just be another event in time.
>>>
>>> But by grace and as a gift of freedom, God gave us a choice, both in whether
>>> to believe in Him and whether to make right or wrong decisions. With moral
>>> absolutes (God's word) as a reference we have a way to evaluate drastically
>>> differing situations on an equivalent basis; with consistency in reasoning
>>> and compassion; by choice and instinct rather than puppetry. Even when we
>>> choose to do wrong, He is willing to forgive us. Without that option to
>>> choose, balanced by God's grace and forgiveness, there would be no power in
>>> choosing to believe in Him. That's what makes God a personal and loving God
>>> rather than a dictator or puppet master.
>>>
>>> Odd as it may seem to anyone who doesn't believe, I can see God in the way
>>> that 1) we as a group of intelligent people on this forum can discuss
>>> completely opposing opinions and still care enough to consider insulting,
>>> belittling, slandering and hating one another an intolerable concept; and 2)
>>> in all likelihood agree that peace and compassion completely trump greed and
>>> power in importance to life and survival together on this planet.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Dedric
>>>
>>> On 9/17/06 7:12 PM, in article 450df091@linux, "Uptown Jimmy"
>>> <johnson314@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The idea that one needs to believe in a god in order to have a strong morals
>>>> is absurd, I think.
>>>>
>>>> Jimmy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Dedric Terry" <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:C1325038.358D%dterry@keyofd.net...
>>>>> Gene -
>>>>>
>>>>> You probably didn't realize it (so no offense), but your response pretty
>>>>> much confirms my assertion that the tendency of our country and even the
>>>>> world society, is to place blame for religious conflict, violence and
>>>>> religiously motivated terrorism anywhere but with the single largest
>>>>> growing, and currently most violent religion in the world. We ignore car
>>>>> bombings, suicide bombers, torched churches, thousands of tortured and
>>>>> murdered, exiled and ostracized people in favor of blaming the
>>>>> administration for anything and everything, as if Bush made the Pope quote
>>>> a
>>>>> Byzantine emperor by going to war in Iraq.
>>>>>
>>>>> Islam isn't the passive, peaceful, non-threatening, all-accepting religion
>>>>> our country seems to blindly want to believe. Some western Muslims might
>>>>> be, but just ask anyone who tried to believe in anything else in many of
>>>> the
>>>>> conservative Islamic countries of the world. I know, have talked to, and
>>>>> have heard missionaries to these countries speak - it's a different world
>>>>> from the free discussions and widely varying opinions we have here.
>>>> People
>>>>> die for converting to anything else, or their families do. At best, their
>>>>> families disown them and they sneak out of the country under threat of
>>>>> death. In fact it's the exact opposite of the "freedom" our country
>>>>> continually pushes the limits of. Odd that we would turn on our own
>>>> country
>>>>> in favor of supporting, or at least turning a blind eye to this kind of
>>>>> ideology, somehow believing that is the more politically correct thing to
>>>>> do.
>>>>>
>>>>> The problem I see isn't religion, but a lack of faith in God, and hence
>>>> any
>>>>> sense of direction and moral guidance. God gives us the choice to believe
>>>>> or not. Based on documents of their activities - in the name of Allah the
>>>>> 9/11 terrorists pretty much broke every one of the 10 commandments in 24
>>>>> hours. That may seem a trivial or even silly fact, but there is a sad,
>>>> and
>>>>> frightening irony there. Faith in God isn't what one should fear - it's
>>>>> believing in anything that conveniently appeases one's personal whims that
>>>>> is the true danger.... the terrorists proved that in one day. That also
>>>>> includes believing in nothing.
>>>>>
>>>>> As Blaise Pascal once said (paraphrased): if one believes in God and is
>>>>> wrong, at worst one has lived a good live and had some false hope as a
>>>> sense
>>>>> of comfort along the way; if one doesn't believe and is wrong, then at
>>>>> best, all is lost for eternity. This is the paradox that we should be
>>>>> considering, and yet the most fear-inducing thought is that the President
>>>>> might believe in something other than nothing. Is no belief really better
>>>>> than belief? What reference point for right and wrong accompanies
>>>> disbelief
>>>>> in anything higher than one's own decisions? What reference point for
>>>>> respect for other people's beliefs accompanies a lack of belief in any
>>>>> guideline for living life and having respect and compassion for others?
>>>>>
>>>>> It isn't the administration's fault that the Pope quoted a guy Islam
>>>> doesn't
>>>>> like just because he called like he saw it - something we do on this forum
>>>>> every single day, ironically. It also isn't Christianity's intent to take
>>>>> over the world, or the government. Far from it. The only goal is to give
>>>>> people a chance to decide. Yet, those that want to decide to not believe
>>>>> would rather take that right away and remove Christianity from public
>>>> view.
>>>>> The only way to force someone to remove their belief from public in a
>>>>> country that promotes the freedom to believe as one wishes, is to outlaw
>>
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71261 is a reply to message #71258] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 11:04 |
rick
Messages: 1976
Registered: February 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
>> it.
>>>>> Yet another paradox.
>>>>>
>>>>> Through our short sighted political glasses we want to see the world as a
>>>>> black and white, free-will, partisan vote where one's party always wins
>>>> and
>>>>> the decisions are always in our favor, but fail to see any validity in
>>>>> believing a God that gave us the very moral compass to maintain the
>>>> balance
>>>>> that kind of choice affords us. In essence we put our trust in the very
>>>>> thing we prove day in and day out to be one of the most fallible
>>>>> characteristics of humanity - political and relativistic ideology.
>>>>>
>>>>> I guess I ignored my own first comment....sorry about that.
>>>>>
>>>>> I should get back to mourning NI Battery 2's destruction of 10 hours of
>>>> work
>>>>> :-((....
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Dedric
>>>>>
>>>>> On 9/16/06 9:09 PM, in article 450cbc70$1@linux, "gene Lennon"
>>>>> <glennon@NOSPmyrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dedric Terry <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> I don't want to start another religious or political thread -...
>>>>>> These are frightening times. While the true neocons in the current
>>>>>> administration
>>>>>> have had a variety of political, financial and power-based reasons for
>>>>>> perusing
>>>>>> the war against Iraq, the president has had an even scarier motivation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Religion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you missed it, this week Bush has announced the "Third Great
>>>> Awakening"
>>>>>> of the international religious struggle. This is a good thing as he sees
>>>>>> it and it has been partially brought on by the new fight against
>>>> terrorists
>>>>>> (Translation - Due to his good work in God's name). A war that he
>>>> depicts
>>>>>> as "a confrontation between good and evil."
>>>>>> In 2001 he used the word "crusade" and got into quite a bit of trouble
>>>> (as
>>>>>> has the Pope), but he seems to have the gloves off now.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can anyone imagine a worse direction for the world to be headed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course he also believes in the Rapture, so things could easily go
>>>> down
>>>>>> hill from here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> More on the "Third Awakening":
>>>>>>
>>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09 /12/AR2006091201
>>>> 59
>>>>>> 4_pf.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Gene
>>>>>>
>> `
>It works fine on one drive Kim.
Just set the local drives as different folders on the same drive.
--
Martin Harrington
www.lendanear-sound.com
"Kim" <hiddensounds@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:450dfb80$1@linux...
>
>
> Is there some way to get Cooledit going if you only have one drive?
>
> It seems to want, ideally, two other local drives apart from your main
> system
> drive...
>
> I'm trying to get it running on a machine with only one drive, but it
> won't
> play ball...
>
> Cheers,
> Kim.This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
------=_NextPart_000_00E3_01C6DADE.77255CD0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Deej,
Nurture this one.
Tom
"DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message =
news:450e471d$1@linux...
He wrote the software program that MRI machines are using these days. =
Very
interesting guy. I'm mastering a project for his wife. He was pretty
interested in the Paris program. His wife is pretty well known in the =
LA
music community and he digs this stuff. I may ask him if he could =
write a
delay compensation applet for Paris. He really got a chuckle out of
Frankencomp.......said he's built a few similar monstrosities himself. =
They
will be back over here tomorrow night.
;o)
I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?
http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html
------=_NextPart_000_00E3_01C6DADE.77255CD0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=3DGENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Deej,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Nurture this one.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Tom</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE=20
style=3D&q
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71268 is a reply to message #71233] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 12:07 |
Sarah
Messages: 608
Registered: February 2007
|
Senior Member |
|
|
our "God-given" intelligence which allowed that moral evolution.
The only problem I have with using the word "God" in any discussion of
morals, reality, etc., is that there are too many different ideas of who,
what, or if God is. Thus "God" becomes kind of a short cut, a metaphor for
pretty much anything that transcends human understanding.
Perhaps as a courtesy to others involved in a discussion, if one is
going to use the word "God," one should include a definition of the term.
For example, if by "God" you mean the inate awareness of good that connects
all of us spiritually, I'm down wit dat. If by "God" you mean a Big Guy in
the Sky who fries his own "children" in a lake of fire, I'm probably going
to ask questions, like, "Well, um . . . does he have a penis?"
"The stars up above are runnin' on love." - Captain Beefheart
Love,
Sarah
"Dedric Terry" <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote in message
news:C1339AF3.35E7%dterry@keyofd.net...
> Hi Jamie,
>
> While those are certainly good examples of the common definition of
> faith,,
> we shouldn't confuse faith in God with trust that event B will follow
> event
> A. The latter can also easily be attributed to learned behavior. But not
> all aspects of faith in God can be seen or experienced.
>
> Hebrews 11:1
> What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is
> going
> to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.
>
> And no doubt that can apply to a falling guitar pick, though I doubt you
> hope that will happen during a gig. ;-)
>
> How does one believe that there is life after death though, or that God is
> sovereign even over devastating situations? That is where the faith I
> refer
> to comes into play. And I would also prop
|
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| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71275 is a reply to message #71271] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 12:57 |
Sarah
Messages: 608
Registered: February 2007
|
Senior Member |
|
|
y just be saying the
>> same thing about you and your religion. For those religions who are not
>> tolerant of other ideas, you may just have started a war.
>>
>> So perhaps it's BETTER, in our time, to have a system of justice that is
>> NOT based on a religion. But one which guarantees everyone the right to
>> practice the religion of their choice, guarantees other freedoms such as
>> we in the USA do in our Bill of Rights, encourages honesty and
>> integrity, while enforcing some common sense limits such as no human
>> sacrifices, a minimum age for marriage, no incest, no slavery, no
>> murder, no rape, no stealing, those sorts of things.
>>
>> What is viewed as morality beyond a fair justice system and common sense
>> rules of behavior can be left to each freely chosen religion to sort
>> out, like whether to restrict diet in some way, whether to wear a
>> certain type of clothing, how to pray, etc. But none of these additional
>> practices should be imposed on society as a whole.
>>
>> The Golden Rule may also be of use as a basic moral foundation.
>>
>> So yes, you can have a moral system, one that BTW protects the freedom
>> to practice religious beliefs (or not), without basing it on any one
>> religion. And it can protect all religions
|
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|
| Re: Terrorist plot foiled...Christians has Lost focus [message #71277 is a reply to message #71217] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 13:54 |
TCB
Messages: 1261
Registered: July 2007
|
Senior Member |
|
|
finitions of right and wrong, assuming societies
>>> even
>>> existed, would be so drastic we would never have ventured into any form
>>> of
>>> inter-cultural/inter-geographic interaction, much less relationships,
>>> diplomacy, collaboration, trade, and open travel.
>>>
>>> As long as "morals" are only relative to each individual, they aren't
>>> absolute morals that would last longer than the time it takes to make
>>> the
>>> choice. We would just have 6.5 billion opinions. There would only be
>>> an
>>> ever changing perspective on what seems to "make sense" at the time, and
>>> based on this premise, even "making sense" would vary from person to
>>> person,
>>> day to day, minute to minute. In that case, our prisons would either be
>>> filled with innocent people simply judged "wrong" at the time because
>>> their
>>> choices didn't match the preferences of the majority; or we wouldn't
>>> have
>>> prisons, or likely even organized societies.
>>>
>>> But is the majority always right? How would we know if there were no
>>> absolutes that supercede the majority in some form?
>>>
>>> If there were no right and wrong, there would be no consequences of
>>> either,
>>> or at least we wouldn't view the outcome as a good or bad consequence -
>>> it
>>> would just be another event in time.
>>>
>>> But by grace and as a gift of freedom, God gave us a choice, both in
>>> whether
>>> to believe in Him and whether to make right or wrong decisions. With
>>> moral
>>> absolutes (God's word) as a reference we have a way to evaluate
>>> drastically
>>> differing situations on an equivalent basis; with consistency in
>>> reasoning
>>> and compassion; by choice and instinct rather than puppetry. Even when
>>> we
>>> choose to do wrong, He is willing to forgive us. Without that option to
>>> choose, balanced by God's grace and forgiveness, there would be no power
>>> in
>>> choosing to believe in Him. That's what makes God a personal and loving
>>> God
>>> rather than a dictator or puppet master.
>>>
>>> Odd as it may seem to anyone who doesn't believe, I can see God in the
>>> way
>>> that 1) we as a group of intelligent people on this forum can discuss
>>> completely opposing opinions and still care enough to consider
>>> insulting,
>>> belittling, slandering and hating one another an intolerable concept;
>>> and 2)
>>> in all likelihood agree that peace and compassion completely trump greed
>>> and
>>> power in importance to life and survival together on this planet.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Dedric
>>>
>>> On 9/17/06 7:12 PM, in article 450df091@linux, "Uptown Jimmy"
>>> <johnson314@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The idea that one needs to believe in a god in order to have a strong
>>>> morals
>>>> is absurd, I think.
>>>>
>>>> Jimmy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Dedric Terry" <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:C1325038.358D%dterry@keyofd.net...
>>>>> Gene -
>>>>>
>>>>> You probably didn't realize it (so no offense), but your response
>>>>> pretty
>>>>> much confirms my assertion that the tendency of our country and even
>>>>> the
>>>>> world society, is to place blame for religious conflict, violence and
>>>>> religiously motivated terrorism anywhere but with the single largest
>>>>> growing, and currently most violent religion in the world. We ignore
>>>>> car
>>>>> bombings, suicide bombers, torched churches, thousands of tortured and
>>>>> murdered, exiled and ostracized people in favor of blaming the
>>>>> administration for anything and everything, as if Bush made the Pope
>>>>> quote
>>>> a
>>>>> Byzantine emperor by going to war in Iraq.
>>>>>
>>>>> Islam isn't the passive, peaceful, non-threatening, all-accepting
>>>>> religion
>>>>> our country seems to blindly want to believe. Some western Muslims
>>>>> might
>>>>> be, but just ask anyone who tried to believe in anything else in many
>>>>> of
>>>> the
>>>>> conservative Islamic countries of the world. I know, have talked to,
>>>>> and
>>>>> have heard missionaries to these countries speak - it's a different
>>>>> world
>>>>> from the free discussions and widely varying opinions we have here.
>>>> People
>>>>> die for converting to anything else, or their families do. At best,
>>>>> their
>>>>> families disown them and they sneak out of the country under threat of
>>>>> death. In fact it's the exact opposite of the "freedom" our country
>>>>> continually pushes the limits of. Odd that we would turn on our own
>>>> country
>>>>> in favor of supporting, or at least turning a blind eye to this kind
>>>>> of
>>>>> ideology, somehow believing that is the more politically correct thing
>>>>> to
>>>>> do.
>>>>>
>>>>> The problem I see isn't religion, but a lack of faith in God, and
>>>>> hence
>>>> any
>>>>> sense of direction and moral guidance. God gives us the choice to
>>>>> believe
>>>>> or not. Based on documents of their activities - in the name of Allah
>>>>> the
>>>>> 9/11 terrorists pretty much broke every one of the 10 commandments in
>>>>> 24
>>>>> hours. That may seem a trivial or even silly fact, but there is a
>>>>> sad,
>>>> and
>>>>> frightening irony there. Faith in God isn't what one should fear -
>>>>> it's
>>>>> believing in anything that conveniently appeases one's personal whims
>>>>> that
>>>>> is the true danger.... the terrorists proved that in one day. That
>>>>> also
>>>>> includes believing in nothing.
>>>>>
>>>>> As Blaise Pascal once said (paraphrased): if one believes in God and
>>>>> is
>>>>> wrong, at worst one has lived a good live and had some false hope as a
>>>> sense
>>>>> of comfort along the way; if one doesn't believe and is wrong, then
>>>>> at
>>>>> best, all is lost for eternity. This is the paradox that we should be
>>>>> considering, and yet the most fear-inducing thought is that the
>>>>> President
>>>>> might believe in something other than nothing. Is no belief really
>>>>> better
>>>>> than belief? What reference point for right and wrong accompanies
>>>> disbelief
>>>>> in anything higher than one's own decisions? What reference point for
>>>>> respect for other people's beliefs accompanies a lack of belief in any
>>>>> guideline for living life and having respect and compassion for
>>>>> others?
>>>>>
>>>>> It isn't the administration's fault that the Pope quoted a guy Islam
>>>> doesn't
>>>>> like just because he called like he saw it - something we do on this
>>>>> forum
>>>>> every single day, ironically. It also isn't Christianity's intent to
>>>>> take
>>>>> over the world, or the government. Far from it. The only goal is to
>>>>> give
>>>>> people a chance to decide. Yet, those that want to decide to not
>>>>> believe
>>>>> would rather take that right away and remove Christianity from public
>>>> view.
>>>>> The only way to force someone to remove
|
|
|
|
| Re: Terrorist plot foiled [message #71279 is a reply to message #71268] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 14:19 |
DC
Messages: 722
Registered: July 2005
|
Senior Member |
|
|
/>
>>>>>> hill from here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> More on the "Third Awakening":
>>>>>>
>>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09 /12/AR2006091201
>>>> 59
>>>>>> 4_pf.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Gene
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>> `
>Yes, Don, you win. And if you're ever in town, I'll let you have one of my
Drop Top Amber Ales, or a Black Butte Porter. :)
S
"DC" <dc@spammersinhell.com> wrote in message news:450dccf6$1@linux...
>
> As long as we all have been yakking on these subjects, three
> things have happened.
>
> 1. No one switched sides
>
> 2. Everyone learned something
>
> 3. Almost all of us have gotten much more skilled in being
> nice to each other despite our differences.
>
>
> I don't know about the rest of you, but I am going to declare
> victory and have a beer...
>
> DC
>Delay Compensation would be sweet !
"Tom Bruhl" <arpegio@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>Deej,
>Nurture this one.
>Tom
>
> "DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message =
>news:450e471d$1@linux...
> He wrote the software program that MRI machines are using these days.
=
>Very
> interesting guy. I'm mastering a project for his wife. He was pretty
> interested in the Paris program. His wife is pretty well known in the
=
>LA
> music community and he digs this stuff. I may ask him if he could =
>write a
> delay compensation applet for Paris. He really got a chuckle out of
> Frankencomp.......said he's built a few similar monstrosities himself.
=
>They
> will be back over here tomorrow night.
>
> ;o)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?
>http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html
>
><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
><HTML><HEAD>
><META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
>charset=3Diso-8859-1">
><META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=3DGENERATOR>
><STYLE></STYLE>
></HEAD>
><BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
><DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Deej,</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Nurture this one.</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Tom</FONT></DIV>
><DIV> </DIV>
><BLOCKQUOTE=20
>style=3D"PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; =
>BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
> <DIV>"DJ" <<A=20
> =
>href=3D"mailto:animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net">animix_spam-this-ahole=
>_@animas.net</A>>=20
> wrote in message <A=20
> href=3D"news:450e471d$1@linux">news:450e471d$1@linux</A>...</DIV>He =
>wrote the=20
> software program that MRI machines are using these days. =20
> Very<BR>interesting guy. I'm mastering a project for his =
>wife. He=20
> was pretty<BR>interested in the Paris program. His wife is pretty well
=
>known=20
> in the LA<BR>music community and he digs this stuff. I may ask him if
=
>he could=20
> write a<BR>delay compensation applet for Paris. He really got a =
>chuckle out=20
> of<BR>Frankencomp.......said he's built a few similar monstrosities =
>
|
|
|
|
| Re: Terrorist plot foiled...Christians has Lost focus [message #71280 is a reply to message #71277] |
Tue, 15 August 2006 14:40 |
DC
Messages: 722
Registered: July 2005
|
Senior Member |
|
|
himself.=20
> They<BR>will be back over here tomorrow=20
>night.<BR><BR>;o)<BR><BR><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
><DIV><FONT size=3D2><BR><BR>I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, =
>and=20
>you?<BR><A=20
>href=3D"http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html">http://www.polesoft.com/refer=
>.html</A> </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
>
>Great post, thanks John
MR
"John" <no@no.com> wrote in message news:450b65d0$1@linux...
>
> Nice Roger Nichols tips:
>
>
>
> Summary:
> Mix reverb of master mix back in with master mix.
> Split vocal to multiple verbs that trigger based on vocal volume (or ride
> faders on multiple channels with different verbs).
>
>
>
>
> Today we use individual sends on individual channels to send to individual
> reverbs, sometimes lots of them. One thing I have noticed with many older
> songs is that it sounds like there are not just certain instruments going
> to certain reverbs. Frequently it sounds like there is just one reverb
but,
> more importantly than that, it sounds like there's only one reverb send
and
> it's tapped off the master fader (either mono or stereo). I hear the kick
> drum, guitars, bass, vocal, strings, everything at mix-relative levels in
> the reverb. (I doubt this was a creative call, so much as a "necessity is
> the mother of invention" thing. I doubt there were aux sends on the
console,
> so they tapped from the master fader and sent it to a chamber and then
reinserted
> it into the stereo mix.) I can take a mix that sounds really far away from
> a classic 60s song and toss the "universal 'verb" on it and it transforms
> the mix to being nearly identical. It's a mix "glue" thing.
>
> I'm not saying this is a trick that will work for anyone today, but it
certainly
> makes a "new mix" sound a lot more like an "old mix" from 50 years ago.
Sometimes
> you just have t
|
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|
| Re: So why do they want to kill us? [message #71310 is a reply to message #71307] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 10:00 |
Jamie K
Messages: 1115
Registered: July 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
ecularist seek to break God and reason apart.
> > Each claims superiority over the Christian West. They believe
> > absolute moral license makes them powerful. As globalization
> > carries the Western tradition of reason throughout the world,
> > both are in decline.
> >
> > Where the force of reason is defeated, Islamist and secularist
> > will meet in combat, just as Hitler’s fascists broke their pact
> > with the Soviet Union, invading in June, 1941 after the collapse
> > of the allied forces on the western front.
> >
> > What the Islamists and the New York Times both fear is having to
> > reply to the Pope’s key point, borrowed from the Byzantine
> > Emperor: “‘Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos (word or
> > reason) is contrary to the nature of God,’.… It is to this great
> > logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in
> > the dialogue of cultures.”
> >
> > Their fear of reason can only lead the world to disaster.
> >or even emotion vs emotion at the animal level?
"DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message
news:450ee547@linux...
> It doesn't matter at all whether this was the Pope. The bottom line is
> that
> it is rationality as opposed to irrationality.
>
> "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450ec970@linux...
>>
>> The Catholic church doesn't speak for Christianity. Certainly not for
>> Lutherans, and for good reason.
>>
>> A Pope criticizing other religions (even other Christian sects, even
>> other Catholics) is nothing new. Certainly much harsher things have been
>> said about Islam by some (not all) extreme fundamentalist Christians.
>> And certainly much harsher things have been said by certain extremist
>> Islamists about Christianity. The more extremist of both camps seem to
>> be spoiling to relive the crusades. With some of the more power hungry
>> ready to endanger civilization by attempting to incite religious wars
>> for their own questionable ends.
>>
>> It's a vast generalization to say the "the left" or "secularists" or
>> even "Christians" are demanding an apology from the Pope. I think a
>> whole lot of people think the Pope can say whatever he wants. It doesn't
>> matter to most non-Catholics in the USA and in reality, Papal
>> declarations are ignored by a fair number of Catholics here, too.
>> Obviously some Moslems are upset in some places, but how deep does that
>> go? When black churches w
|
|
|
|
| Re: So why do they want to kill us? [message #71312 is a reply to message #71307] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 11:16 |
TCB
Messages: 1261
Registered: July 2007
|
Senior Member |
|
|
> > in a God not bound by anything-including his own words. Benedict
>> > further contrasts Christian belief with that of secular humanists
>> > who see reason as being completely unbound of God.
>> >
>> > In response, both Islamists and secularists have demanded the
>> > Pope apologize. Benedict's speech is a work of enlightened
>> > genius. He has clearly laid out the differences between
>> > Christian culture and Islamic culture and the basis of the clash
>> > of civilizations we now experience as the War on Terror. His
>> > analysis also explains the underlying cause of the alliance
>> > between the western Left and the Islamofascist Right.
>> >
>> > Islamist reaction focuses on one sentence in the speech.
>> > Reaching back to 1391, Benedict quotes Byzantine Emperor Manuel
>> > II: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there
>> > you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
>> > to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
>> >
>> > Four days later, according to AP: "Pakistan's legislature
>> > unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite
>> > cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party
>> > likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of
>> > reviving the mentality of the Crusades.
>> >
>> > "Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict's remarks on Islam and
>> > jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that
>> > many fear could burst into violent protests like those that
>> > followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad."
>> >
>> > Reuters quoted other sources expressing fears for the Pope's
>> > safety and even fear of an attack on Vatican City.
>> >
>> > The Islamist reaction proves Manuel II's 600-year-old point. The
>> > reaction is not one of anger but a calculated attempt to force
>> > the Pope to parrot the PC line on Islam. Since Islam need not be
>> > internally consistent and it is not bound by reason, it's only
>> > objective can be to assert the power of a God who is so
>> > transcendent that He is not bound by anything. If man is created
>> > in God's image then by extension Islamic man is not bound by
>> > anything. (This explains the predilection on the part of some
>> > Muslims to lie.) Islamists are not responding to any 'offense' to
>> > their non-existent morality. They are asserting the only
>> > 'morality' they have-the will to power.
>> >
>> > "Will to Power" is a key element of Nietzsche 's philosophy-hence
>> > the root of the term, Islamofascist. Moreover the Western "Left'
>> > is today guided far more by Nietzsche existentialist thought than
>> > by Marxist thought-hence the alliance between the Western "Left"
>> > and the Islamofascist 'Right.'
>> >
>> > Reuters quotes an Indian Muslim leader doing precisely what
>> > Manuel II said they would: "Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric
>> > of New Delhi's historic Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque,
>> > extolled Muslims to 'respond in a manner which forces the Pope to
>> > apologize.'" Note they intend to use "force" not rea
|
|
|
|
| Oh gawd . . [message #71315 is a reply to message #71279] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 12:00 |
Sarah
Messages: 608
Registered: February 2007
|
Senior Member |
|
|
ltures."
>> >
>> > Their fear of reason can only lead the world to disaster.
>> >
>
>Let's keep from reacting to irrationality with irrationality of our own.
There's a lot of fear mongering. Chicken Little is back.
Cheers,
-Jamie
http://www.JamieKrutz.com
DJ wrote:
> It doesn't matter at all whether this was the Pope. The bottom line is that
> it is rationality as opposed to irrationality.
>
> "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450ec970@linux...
>> The Catholic church doesn't speak for Christianity. Certainly not for
>> Lutherans, and for good reason.
>>
>> A Pope criticizing other religions (even other Christian sects, even
>> other Catholics) is nothing new. Certainly much harsher things have been
>> said about Islam by some (not all) extreme fundamentalist Christians.
>> And certainly much harsher things have been said by certain extremist
>> Islamists about Christianity. The more extremist of both camps seem to
>> be spoiling to relive the crusades. With some of the more power hungry
>> ready to endanger civilization by attempting to incite religious wars
>> for their own questionable ends.
>>
>> It's a vast generalization to say the "the left" or "secularists" or
>> even "Christians" are demanding an apology from the Pope. I think a
>> whole lot of people think the Pope can say whatever he wants. It doesn't
>> matter to most non-Catholics in the USA and in reality, Papal
>> declarations are ignored by a fair number of Catholics here, too.
>> Obviously some Moslems are upset in some places, but how deep does that
>> go? When black churches were burning in the USA, it would have been an
>> exaggeration to blame everyone in the USA for that.
>>
>> The fear of reason extends to the Catholic church which only very
>> recently apologized for the oppression of Galileo. The church hung on
>> tenaciously to the dogma of an earth-centered view of the universe while
>> denying the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which describes the
>> actual way the solar system works.
>>
>> It also extends to a few Christian sects who, feeling similarly
>> insecure, tenaciously cling to the notion that the earth is only about
>> 6,000 years old, by virtue of the biblical interpretations and clever
>> (at the time) calculations of an Irish Bishop several centuries ago, and
>> in the face of solid current scientific evidence to the contrary.
>>
>> The fear of reason extends to some (not all) Christian churches who,
>> feeling similarly insecure, deny the solid and ever-mounting evidence of
>> evolution, responding with dogma in psuedo-scientific clothing, and who
>> seek to water down scientific education in the USA.
>>
>> The fear of reason extends to power hungry industries who pay big bucks
>> to spread denial about global warming for short term gain. Who push to
>> control oil in the middle east with force. With our guns blazing, our
>> soldiers dying and our debt rising astronomically. And who sometimes
>> hide behind Christianity to do so.
>>
>> The fear of reason extends to some neoconservatives who find ways to
>> pretend that everyone is aligning against Christianity. And in spreading
>> this fear attempt to incite Christians to vote to keep them in power.
>> And in so pandering, help to continue the denial of reason and the focus
>> on the use of force.
>>
>> Not that I'll change your mind, DC, so go ahead and declare victory. ;^)
>>
>> Have a great week!
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -Jamie
>> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>>
>>
>> DC wrote:
>>> I thought this was worth reading if any of you are interested.
>>>
>>> Have a great Monday!
>>>
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>
>>> The Unholy Alliance Rolls Over the Pope
>>> By Andrew Walden
>>>
>>> In what has suddenly been made into a highly controversial
>>> speech, the day after September 11, at Bavaria’s University of
>>> Regensberg, Pope Benedict describes Christian belief in a God
>>> whose words and acts are bound by reason, truth and the law of
>>> non-contradiction. Benedict contrasts this with Islamic belief
>>> in a God not bound by anything—including his own words. Benedict
>>> further contrasts Christian belief with that of secular humanists
>>> who see reason as being completely unbound of God.
>>>
>>> In response, both Islamists and secularists have demanded the
>>> Pope apologize. Benedict’s speech is a work of enlightened
>>> genius. He has clearly laid out the differences between
>>> Christian culture and Islamic culture and the basis of the clash
>>> of civilizations we now experience as the War on Terror. His
>>> analysis also explains the underlying cause of the alliance
>>> between the western Left and the Islamofascist Right.
>>>
>>> Islamist reaction focuses on one sentence in the speech.
>>> Reaching back to 1391, Benedict quotes Byzantine Emperor Manuel
>>> II: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there
>>> you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
>>> to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
>>>
>>> Four days later, according to AP: “Pakistan's legislature
>>> unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite
>>> cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party
>>> likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of
>>> reviving the mentality of the Crusades.
>>>
>>> “Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict's remarks on Islam and
>>> jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that
>>> many fear could burst into violent protests like those that
>>> followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.”
>>>
>>> Reuters quoted other sources expressing fears for the Pope’s
>>> safety and even fear of an attack on Vatican City.
>>>
>>> The Islamist reaction proves Manuel II’s 600-year-old point. The
>>> reaction is not one of anger but a calculated attempt to force
>>> the Pope to parrot the PC line on Islam. Since Islam need not be
>>> internally consistent and it is not bound by reason, it’s only
>>> objective can be to assert the power of a God who is so
>>> transcendent that He is not bound by anything. If man is created
>>> in God’s image then by extension Islamic man is not bound by
>>> anything. (This explains the predilection on the part of some
>>> Muslims to lie.) Islamists are not responding to any ‘offense’ to
>>> their non-existent morality. They are asserting the only
>>> ‘morality’ they have—the will to power.
>>>
>>> “Will to Power” is a key element of Nietzsche ’s philosophy—hence
>>> the root of the term, Islamofascist. Moreover the Western “Left’
>>> is today guided far more by Nietzsche existentialist thought than
>>> by Marxist thought—hence the alliance between the Western “Left”
>>> and the Islamofascist ‘Right.’
>>>
>>> Reuters quotes an Indian Muslim leader doing precisely what
>>> Manuel II said they would: “Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric
>>> of New Delhi's historic Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque,
>>> extolled Muslims to ‘respond in a manner which forces the Pope to
>>> apologize.’” Note they intend to use “force” not reason.
>>>
>>> Reuters quotes an unnamed diplomat pointing out the Pope was,
>>> “calling a spade a spade”.
>>>
>>> The secularist mouthpiece, New York Times,editorializes, “Pope
>>> Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims….” This is false. The Pope’s
>>> description of the Islamic God as being unbound by reason is not
>>> an insult, it is an Islamic article of faith. What Muslims and
>>> secularists fear is the Pope’s decision to choose to enter
>>> dialogue asserting his belief in Christianity. How dare he not
>>> “apologize” for being a Christian? That is the so-called
>>> “insult.”
>>>
>>> One might “reasonably” ask when will Muslims “apologize” for
>>> being Muslim? But they are not bound by reason to the point is
>>> lost on them.
>>>
>>> Amazingly the Times continues: “Muslim leaders the world over
>>> have demanded apologies… For many Muslims, holy war — jihad — is
>>> a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence.” In saying
>>> this, the Times implicitly recognizes the Islamists are waging a
>>> propaganda jihad against the Pope and by extension against
>>> Christianity—and they explicitly endorse and join this jihad.
>>> The Times is saying to Islamists, ‘we can join your ‘spiritual’
>>> jihad, but not your violent jihad.
>>>
>>> The Times editors are living in a fool’s paradise. The
>>> “spiritual” non-viole
|
|
|
|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71316 is a reply to message #71315] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 11:57 |
DC
Messages: 722
Registered: July 2005
|
Senior Member |
|
|
nt jihad of propaganda is merely the flip
>>> side of the violent jihad. Nowhere is that more clear than in
>>> the Islamist reaction to the Pope.
>>>
>>> With the Pope scheduled to visit Turkey in November the Islamists
>>> are rejecting any apology from Vatican spokespersons and demand
>>> to hear from the Pope himself. This would place raging mobs of
>>> semi-literate Islamist thugs in the position of forcing the
>>> leader of Christendom to bow before them.
>>>
>>> In this demand for submission they are joined by the secularist
>>> mouthpiece. In its September 16 edition the Times editorializes:
>>> “He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology…” The
>>> secularists too seek the Pope’s submission. Like the Islamists,
>>> the secularists are driven only by their will to power. While
>>> the Islamists represent their demented version of
>>> God--unrestrained by reason, the secularists represent their
>>> demented version of reason--unrestrained by God. They are united
>>> by their self-worshipping world view.
>>>
>>> It should be noted that the carefully staged “anger’ from the
>>> Islamic world does not condemn Benedict’s characterization of
>>> Islam as a religion where God’s “will is not bound up with any of
>>> our categories, even that of rationality...(The Islamic) God is
>>> not bound even by his own word….” This is not seen as an insult.
>>> Islam embraces this description. In offering this description of
>>> Islam, Benedict refers to the views of leading modern French
>>> Islamist R. Arnaldez as discussed in the writings of Professor
>>> Theodore Khoury of Munster.
>>>
>>> Likewise the secularists express no dismay at the pope’s
>>> characterization of a secularist as: “(A) subject (who) then
>>> decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers
>>> tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective ‘conscience’
>>> becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical.”
>>>
>>> Benedict asserts that without reason, or without God, there can
>>> be no modern system of morality. He explains, “In this
>>> way…ethics and religion lose their power to create a community
>>> and become (instead) a completely personal matter.”
>>>
>>> Both Islamist and secularist seek to break God and reason apart.
>>> Each claims superiority over the Christian West. They believe
>>> absolute moral license makes them powerful. As globalization
>>> carries the Western tradition of reason throughout the world,
>>> both are in decline.
>>>
>>> Where the force of reason is defeated, Islamist and secularist
>>> will meet in combat, just as Hitler’s fascists broke their pact
>>> with the Soviet Union, invading in June, 1941 after the collapse
>>> of the allied forces on the western front.
>>>
>>> What the Islamists and the New York Times both fear is having to
>>> reply to the Pope’s key point, borrowed from the Byzantine
>>> Emperor: “‘Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos (word or
>>> reason) is contrary to the nature of God,’.… It is to this great
>>> logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in
>>> the dialogue of cultures.”
>>>
>>> Their fear of reason can only lead the world to disaster.
>>>
>
>"James McCloskey" <excelsm@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Here, read this! The war with America started on 9/11.
>
>http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060918/D8K7B5UO1.html
>
>Now how do we stop them? Talk to them, apologize to them, convert to Islam?
> Do you want to convert to Islam?
>
“An al-Qaida-linked extremist group...”
The key word is group.
A group of neo-Nazis won seats in this weeks elections in Germany.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/world/europe/17cnd-germany .html?_r=1&hp&ex=1158552000&en=ae34ff540e2ea150& amp;ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin
This group does not speak for all Germans.
A recent NYT article talks about the infiltration of the US Army with skinheads.
People who kill you in a second if they don’t like what you say, or the color
of your skin.
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50713FE3B54 0C748CDDAE0894DE404482&showabstract=1
This group does not speak for all members of the Armed Services or all Americans.
The world is filled with small groups of extremists, even here in the USA.
The trick when dealing with them is to stop them without turning them into
figureheads or martyrs. Our blundering has had the opposite effect.
On 9/11 a small group of extremists who were basically seen as outcasts by
the majority of the Muslim world attacked our country. Our actions since
have doubled and doubled again the scope and severity of this problem.
I am afraid you are right, if we continue on our current course we will turn
this into a world war.
Geneand don't forget the welders goggles...orthe bactine for the burns.
On Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:25:53 -0600, "DJ"
<animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote:
>A Chip That Can Transfer Data Using Laser Light
>
>By JOHN MARKOFF
>Published: September 18, 2006
>
>SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 - Researchers plan to announce on Monday that they
>have created a silicon-based chip that can produce laser beams. The advance
>will make it possible to use laser light rather than wires to send data
>between chips, removing the most significant bottleneck in computer design.
>
>The development is a result of research at Intel, the world's largest chip
>maker, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Commercializing the
>new technology may not happen before the end of the decade, but the prospect
>of being able to place hundreds or thousands of data-carrying light beams on
>standard industry chips is certain to shake up both the communications and
>computer industries.
>
>Lasers are already used to transmit high volumes of computer data over
>longer distances - for example, between offices, cities and across oceans -
>using fiber optic cables. But in computer chips, data moves at great speed
>over the wires inside, then slows to a snail's pace when it is sent
>chip-to-chip inside a computer.
>
>With the barrier removed, computer designers will be able to rethink
>computers, packing chips more densely both in home systems and in giant data
>centers. Moreover, the laser-silicon chips - composed of a spider's web of
>laser light in addition to metal wires - portend a vastly more powerful and
>less expensive national computing infrastructure. For a few dollars apiece,
>such chips could transmit data at 100 times the speed of laser-based
>communications equipment, called optical transceivers, that typically cost
>several thousand dollars.
>
>Currently fiber optic networks are used to transmit data to individual
>neighborhoods in cities where the data is then distributed by slower
>conventional wire-based communications gear. The laser chips will make it
>possible to send avalanches of data to and from individual homes at far less
>cost.
>
>They could also give rise to a new class of supercomputers that could share
>data internally at speeds not possible today.
>
>The breakthrough was achieved by bonding a layer of light-emitting indium
>phosphide onto the surface of a standard silicon chip etched with special
>channels that act as light-wave guides. The resulting sandwich has the
>potential to create on a computer chip hundreds and possibly thousands of
>tiny, bright lasers that can be switched on and off billions of times a
>second.
>
>"This is a field that has just begun exploding in the past 18 months," said
>Eli Yablonovitch, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles,
>a leading researcher in the field. "There is going to be a lot more optical
>communications in computing than people have thought."
>
>Indeed, the results of the development work, which will be reported in a
>coming issue of Optics Express, an international journal, indicate that a
>high-stakes race is under way worldwide. While the researchers at Intel and
>Santa Barbara are betting on indium phosphide, Japanese scientists in a
>related effort are pursuing a different material, the chemical element
>erbium.
>
>Although commercial chips with built-in lasers are years away, Luxtera, a
>company in Carlsbad, Calif., is already selling test chips that incorporate
>most optical components directly into silicon and then inject laser light
>from a separate source.
>
>The Intel-Santa Barbara work proves that it is possible to make complete
>photonic devices using standard chip-making machinery, although not entirely
>out of silicon. "There has always been this final hurdle," said Mario
>Paniccia, director of the Photonics Technology Lab at Intel. "We have now
>come up with a solution that optimizes both sides."
>
>In the past it has proved impossible to couple standard silicon with the
>exotic materials that emit light when electrically charged. But the
>university team supplied a low-temperature bonding technique that does not
>melt the silicon circuitry. The approach uses an electrically charged oxygen
>gas to create a layer of oxide just 25 atoms thick on each material. When
>heated and pressed together, the oxide layer fuses the two materials into a
>single chip that conducts information both through wires and on beams of
>reflected light.
>
>"Photonics has been a low-volume cottage industry," said John E. Bowers,
>director of the Multidisciplinary Optical Switching Technology Center at the
>University of California, Santa Barbara. "Everything will change and laser
>communications will be everywhere, including fiber to the home."
>
>Photonics industry experts briefed on the technique said that it would
>almost certainly pave the way for commercialization of the long-sought
>convergence of silicon chips and optical lasers. "Before, there was more
>hype than substance," said Alan Huang, a former Bell Laboratories researcher
>who is a pioneer in the field and is now chief tech
|
|
|
|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71319 is a reply to message #71315] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 13:04 |
rick
Messages: 1976
Registered: February 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
se to accept as
>> "intelligent" thought, based completely on opinion.
>>
>> Reasoning and Logic? Logic is determined by a hypothesis that has a proven
>> outcome in a given situation. Change the situation, and the reasoning
or
>> logic behind the "right" or "wrong" could easily change.
>>
>> Experience? What if one's experience is filled with hatred, abuse, anger
>> and violence, or worse? Then someone would have to decide whose experience
>> we would use as a reference point. There would be no guarantee that person
>> or persons had experiences that would be best for the good of the whole.
>>
>> Survival instinct? If it were a reference point, then stealing, lying,
>> cheating and even killing would be perfectly justified as those can be
means
>> of survival.
>>
>> Why would right and wrong even exist? I would think that the differences
>> between societies' definitions of right and wrong, assuming societies
even
>> existed, would be so drastic we would never have ventured into any form
of
>> inter-cultural/inter-geographic interaction, much less relationships,
>> diplomacy, collaboration, trade, and open travel.
>>
>> As long as "morals" are only relative to each individual, they aren't
>> absolute morals that would last longer than the time it takes to make
the
>> choice. We would just have 6.5 billion opinions. There would only be
an
>> ever changing perspective on what seems to "make sense" at the time, and
>> based on this premise, even "making sense" would vary from person to person,
>> day to day, minute to minute. In that case, our prisons would either
be
>> filled with innocent people simply judged "wrong" at the time because
their
>> choices didn't match the preferences of the majority; or we wouldn't have
>> prisons, or likely even organized societies.
>>
>> But is the majority always right? How would we know if there were no
>> absolutes that supercede the majority in some form?
>>
>> If there were no right and wrong, there would be no consequences of either,
>> or at least we wouldn't view the outcome as a good or bad consequence
- it
>> would just be another event in time.
>>
>> But by grace and as a gift of freedom, God gave us a choice, both in whether
>> to believe in Him and whether to make right or wrong decisions. With
moral
>> absolutes (God's word) as a reference we have a way to evaluate drastically
>> differing situations on an equivalent basis; with consistency in reasoning
>> and compassion; by choice and instinct rather than puppetry. Even when
we
>> choose to do wrong, He is willing to forgive us. Without that option
to
>> choose, balanced by God's grace and forgiveness, there would be no power
in
>> choosing to believe in Him. That's what makes God a personal and loving
God
>> rather than a dictator or puppet master.
>>
>> Odd as it may seem to anyone who doesn't believe, I can see God in the
way
>> that 1) we as a group of intelligent people on this forum can discuss
>> completely opposing opinions and still care enough to consider insulting,
>> belittling, slandering and hating one another an intolerable concept;
and 2)
>> in all likelihood agree that peace and compassion completely trump greed
and
>> power in importance to life and survival together on this planet.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Dedric
>>
>> On 9/17/06 7:12 PM, in article 450df091@linux, "Uptown Jimmy"
>> <johnson314@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>
>>> The idea that one needs to believe in a god in order to have a strong
morals
>>> is absurd, I think.
>>>
>>> Jimmy
>>>
>>>
>>> "Dedric Terry" <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote in message
>>> news:C1325038.358D%dterry@keyofd.net...
>>>> Gene -
>>>>
>>>> You probably didn't realize it (so no offense), but your response pretty
>>>> much confirms my assertion that the tendency of our country and even
the
>>>> world society, is to place blame for religious conflict, violence and
>>>> religiously motivated terrorism anywhere but with the single largest
>>>> growing, and currently most violent religion in the world. We ignore
car
>>>> bombings, suicide bombers, torched churches, thousands of tortured and
>>>> murdered, exiled and ostracized people in favor of blaming the
>>>> administration for anything and everything, as if Bush made the Pope
quote
>>> a
>>>> Byzantine emperor by going to war in Iraq.
>>>>
>>>> Islam isn't the passive, peaceful, non-threatening, all-accepting religion
>>>> our country seems to blindly want to believe. Some western Muslims
might
>>>> be, but just ask anyone who tried to believe in anything else in many
of
>>> the
>>>> conservative Islamic countries of the world. I know, have talked to,
and
>>>> have heard missionaries to these countries speak - it's a different
world
>>>> from the free discussions and widely varying opinions we have here.
>>> People
>>>> die for converting to anything else, or their families do. At best,
their
>>>> families disown them and they sneak out of the country under threat
of
>>>> death. In fact it's the exact opposite of the "freedom" our country
>>>> continually pushes the limits of. Odd that we would turn on our own
>>> country
>>>> in favor of supporting, or at least turning a blind eye to this kind
of
>>>> ideology, somehow believing that is the more politically correct thing
to
>>>> do.
>>>>
>>>> The problem I see isn't religion, but a lack of faith in God, and hence
>>> any
>>>> sense of direction and moral guidance. God gives us the choice to believe
>>>> or not. Based on documents of their activities - in the name of Allah
the
>>>> 9/11 terrorists pretty much broke every one of the 10 commandments in
24
>>>> hours. That may seem a trivial or even silly fact, but there is a sad,
>>> and
>>>> frightening irony there. Faith in God isn't what one should fear -
it's
>>>> believing in anything that conveniently appeases one's personal whims
that
>>>> is the true danger.... the terrorists proved that in one day. That
also
>>>> includes believing in nothing.
>>>>
>>>> As Blaise Pascal once said (paraphrased): if one believes in God and
is
>>>> wrong, at worst one has lived a good live and had some false hope as
a
>>> sense
>>>> of comfort along the way; if one doesn't believe and is wrong, then
at
>>>> best, all is lost for eternity. This is the paradox that we should
be
>>>> considering, and yet the most fear-inducing thought is that the President
>>>> might believe in something other than nothing. Is no belief really
better
>>>> than belief? What reference point for right and wrong accompanies
>>> disbelief
>>>> in anything higher than one's own decisions? What reference point for
>>>> respect for other people's beliefs accompanies a lack of belief in any
>>>> guideline for living life and having respect and compassion for others?
>>>>
>>>> It isn't the administration's fault that the Pope quoted a guy Islam
>>> doesn't
>>>> like just because he called like he saw it - something we do on this
forum
>>>> every single day, ironically. It also isn't Christianity's intent to
take
>>>> over the world, or the government. Far from it. The only goal is to
give
>>>> people a chance to decide. Yet, those that want to decide to not believe
>>>> would rather take that right away and remove Christianity from public
>>> view.
>>>> The only way to force someone to remove their belief from public in
a
>>>> country that promotes the freedom to believe as one wishes, is to outlaw
>>> it.
>>>> Yet another paradox.
>>>>
>>>> Through our short sighted political glasses we want to see the world
as a
>>>> black and white, free-will, partisan vote where one's party always wins
>>> and
>>>> the decisions are always in our favor, but fail to see any validity
in
>>>> believing a God that gave us the very moral compass to maintain the
>>> balance
>>>> that kind of choice affords us. In essence we put our trust in the
very
>>>> thing we prove day in and day out to be one of the most fallible
>>>> characteristics of humanity - political and relativistic ideology.
>>>>
>>>> I guess I ignored my own first comment....sorry about that.
>>>>
>>>> I should get back to mourning NI Battery 2's destruction of 10 hours
of
>>> work
>>>> :-((....
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Dedric
>>>>
>>>> On 9/16/06 9:09 PM, in article 450cbc70$1@linux, "gene Lennon"
>>>> <glennon@NOSPmyrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dedric Terry <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote:
>>>>>> I don't want to start another religious or political thread -...
>>>>>
>>>>> These are frightening times. While the true neocons in the current
>>>>> administration
>>>>> have had a variety of political, financial and power-based reasons
for
>>>>> perusing
>>>>> the war against Iraq, the president has had an even scarier motivation.
>>>>>
>>>>> Religion.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you missed it, this week Bush has announced the "Third Great
>>> Awakening"
>>>>> of the internat
|
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| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71320 is a reply to message #71319] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 13:17 |
TCB
Messages: 1261
Registered: July 2007
|
Senior Member |
|
|
ional religious struggle. This is a good thing as he
sees
>>>>> it and it has been partially brought on by the new fight against
>>> terrorists
>>>>> (Translation - Due to his good work in God's name). A war that he
>>> depicts
>>>>> as "a confrontation between good and evil."
>>>>> In 2001 he used the word "crusade" and got into quite a bit of trouble
>>> (as
>>>>> has the Pope), but he seems to have the gloves off now.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can anyone imagine a worse direction for the world to be headed?
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course he also believes in the Rapture, so things could easily go
>>> down
>>>>> hill from here.
>>>>>
>>>>> More on the "Third Awakening":
>>>>>
>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09 /12/AR2006091201
>>> 59
>>>>> 4_pf.html
>>>>>
>>>>> Gene
>>>>>
>>>
>>
>`I haven't seen us react with irrationality.............yet. Al Quaeda just
came out with an ultimatim stating that it's full on war now and the west
will be destroyed. The only way to save ourselves is to convert to Islam. So
where to you draw the line between irrationality and self defense?
"Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450ee7ef@linux...
>
> Let's keep from reacting to irrationality with irrationality of our own.
> There's a lot of fear mongering. Chicken Little is back.
>
> Cheers,
> -Jamie
> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>
>
> DJ wrote:
> > It doesn't matter at all whether this was the Pope. The bottom line is
that
> > it is rationality as opposed to irrationality.
> >
> > "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450ec970@linux...
> >> The Catholic church doesn't speak for Christianity. Certainly not for
> >> Lutherans, and for good reason.
> >>
> >> A Pope criticizing other religions (even other Christian sects, even
> >> other Catholics) is nothing new. Certainly much harsher things have
been
> >> said about Islam by some (not all) extreme fundamentalist Christians.
> >> And certainly much harsher things have been said by certain extremist
> >> Islamists about Christianity. The more extremist of both camps seem to
> >> be spoiling to relive the crusades. With some of the more power hungry
> >> ready to endanger civilization by attempting to incite religious wars
> >> for their own questionable ends.
> >>
> >> It's a vast generalization to say the "the left" or "secularists" or
> >> even "Christians" are demanding an apology from the Pope. I think a
> >> whole lot of people think the Pope can say whatever he wants. It
doesn't
> >> matter to most non-Catholics in the USA and in reality, Papal
> >> declarations are ignored by a fair number of Catholics here, too.
> >> Obviously some Moslems are upset in some places, but how deep does that
> >> go? When black churches were burning in the USA, it would have been an
> >> exaggeration to blame everyone in the USA for that.
> >>
> >> The fear of reason extends to the Catholic church which only very
> >> recently apologized for the oppression of Galileo. The church hung on
> >> tenaciously to the dogma of an earth-centered view of the universe
while
> >> denying the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which describes the
> >> actual way the solar system works.
> >>
> >> It also extends to a few Christian sects who, feeling similarly
> >> insecure, tenaciously cling to the notion that the earth is only about
> >> 6,000 years old, by virtue of the biblical interpretations and clever
> >> (at the time) calculations of an Irish Bishop several centuries ago,
and
> >> in the face of solid current scientific evidence to the contrary.
> >>
> >> The fear of reason extends to some (not all) Christian churches who,
> >> feeling similarly insecure, deny the solid and ever-mounting evidence
of
> >> evolution, responding with dogma in psuedo-scientific clothing, and who
> >> seek to water down scientific education in the USA.
> >>
> >> The fear of reason extends to power hungry industries who pay big bucks
> >> to spread denial about global warming for short term gain. Who push to
> >> control oil in the middle east with force. With our guns blazing, our
> >> soldiers dying and our debt rising astronomically. And who sometimes
> >> hide behind Christianity to do so.
> >>
> >> The fear of reason extends to some neoconservatives who find ways to
> >> pretend that everyone is aligning against Christianity. And in
spreading
> >> this fear attempt to incite Christians to vote to keep them in power.
> >> And in so pandering, help to continue the denial of reason and the
focus
> >> on the use of force.
> >>
> >> Not that I'll change your mind, DC, so go ahead and declare victory.
;^)
> >>
> >> Have a great week!
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> -Jamie
> >> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
> >>
> >>
> >> DC wrote:
> >>> I thought this was worth reading if any of you are interested.
> >>>
> >>> Have a great Monday!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ----------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> The Unholy Alliance Rolls Over the Pope
> >>> By Andrew Walden
> >>>
> >>> In what has suddenly been made into a highly controversial
> >>> speech, the day after September 11, at Bavaria’s University of
> >>> Regensberg, Pope Benedict describes Christian belief in a God
> >>> whose words and acts are bound by reason, truth and the law of
> >>> non-contradiction. Benedict contrasts this with Islamic belief
> >>> in a God not bound by anything—including his own words. Benedict
> >>> further contrasts Christian belief with that of secular humanists
> >>> who see reason as being completely unbound of God.
> >>>
> >>> In response, both Islamists and secularists have demanded the
> >>> Pope apologize. Benedict’s speech is a work of enlightened
> >>> genius. He has clearly laid out the differences between
> >>> Christian culture and Islamic culture and the basis of the clash
> >>> of civilizations we now experience as the War on Terror. His
> >>> analysis also explains the underlying cause of the alliance
> >>> between the western Left and the Islamofascist Right.
> >>>
> >>> Islamist reaction focuses on one sentence in the speech.
> >>> Reaching back to 1391, Benedict quotes Byzantine Emperor Manuel
> >>> II: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there
> >>> you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
> >>> to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
> >>>
> >>> Four days later, according to AP: “Pakistan's legislature
> >>> unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite
> >>> cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party
> >>> likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of
> >>> reviving the mentality of the Crusades.
> >>>
> >>> “Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict's remarks on Islam and
> >>> jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that
> >>> many fear could burst into violent protests like those that
> >>> followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.”
> >>>
> >>> Reuters quoted other sources expressing fears for the Pope’s
> >>> safety and even fear of an attack on Vatican City.
> >>>
> >>> The Islamist reaction proves Manuel II’s 600-year-old point. The
> >>> reaction is not one of anger but a calculated attempt to force
> >>> the Pope to parrot the PC line on Islam. Since Islam need not be
> >>> internally consistent and it is not bound by reason, it’s only
> >>> objective can be to assert the power of a God who is so
> >>> transcendent that He is not bound by anything. If man is created
> >>> in God’s image then by extension Islamic man is not bound by
> >>> anything. (This explains the predilection on the part of some
> >>> Muslims to lie.) Islamists are not responding to any ‘offense’ to
> >>> their non-existent morality. They are asserting the only
> >>> ‘morality’ they have—the will to power.
> >>>
> >>> “Will to Power” is a key element of Nietzsche ’s philosophy—hence
> >>> the root of the term, Islamofascist. Moreover the Western “Left’
> >>> is today guided far more by Nietzsche existentialist thought than
> >>> by Marxist thought—hence the alliance between the Western “Left”
> >>> and the Islamofascist ‘Right.’
> >>>
> >>> Reuters quotes an Indian Muslim leader doing precisely what
> >>> Manuel II said they would: “Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric
> >>> of New Delhi's historic Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque,
> >>> extolled Muslims to ‘respond in a manner which forces the Pope to
> >>> apologize.’” Note they intend to use “force” not reason.
> >>>
> >>> Reuters quotes an unnamed diplomat pointing out the Pope was,
> >>> “calling a spade a spade”.
> >>>
> >>> The secularist mouthpiece, New York Times,editorializes, “Pope
> >>> Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims….” This is false. The Pope’s
> >>> description of the Islamic God as being unbound by reason is not
> >>> an insult, it is an Islamic article of faith. What Muslims and
> >>> secularists fear is the Pope’s decision to choose to enter
> >>> dialogue asserting his belief in Christianity. How dare he not
> >>> “apologize” for being a Christian? That is the so-called
> >>> “insult.”
> >>>
> >>> One might “reasonably” ask when will Muslims “apologize” for
> >>> being Muslim? But they are not bound by reason to the point is
> >>> lost on them.
> >>>
> >>> Amazingly the Times continues: “Muslim leaders the world over
> >>> have demanded apologies… For many Muslims, holy war — jihad — is
> >>> a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence.” In saying
> >>> this, the Times implicitly recognizes the Islamists are waging a
> >>> propaganda jihad against the Pope and by extension against
> >>> Christianity—and they explicitly endorse and join this jihad.
> >>> The Times is saying to Islamists, ‘we can join your ‘spiritual’
> >>> jihad, but not your violent jihad.
> >>>
> >>> The Times editors are living in a fool’s paradise. The
> >>> “spiritual” non-violent jihad of propaganda is merely the flip
> >>> side of the violent jihad. Nowhere is that more clear than in
> >>> the Islamist re
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| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71328 is a reply to message #71315] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 16:51 |
Jamie K
Messages: 1115
Registered: July 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
er-geographic interaction, much less relationships,
> diplomacy, collaboration, trade, and open travel.
>
> As long as "morals" are only relative to each individual, they aren't
> absolute morals that would last longer than the time it takes to make the
> choice. We would just have 6.5 billion opinions. There would only be an
> ever changing perspective on what seems to "make sense" at the time, and
> based on this premise, even "making sense" would vary from person to
> person,
> day to day, minute to minute. In that case, our prisons would either be
> filled with innocent people simply judged "wrong" at the time because
> their
> choices didn't match the preferences of the majority; or we wouldn't have
> prisons, or likely even organized societies.
>
> But is the majority always right? How would we know if there were no
> absolutes that supercede the majority in some form?
>
> If there were no right and wrong, there would be no consequences of
> either,
> or at least we wouldn't view the outcome as a good or bad consequence - it
> would just be another event in time.
>
> But by grace and as a gift of freedom, God gave us a choice, both in
> whether
> to believe in Him and whether to make right or wrong decisions. With
> moral
> absolutes (God's word) as a reference we have a way to evaluate
> drastically
> differing situations on an equivalent basis; with consistency in reasoning
> and compassion; by choice and instinct rather than puppetry. Even when we
> choose to do wrong, He is willing to forgive us. Without that option to
> choose, balanced by God's grace and forgiveness, there would be no power
> in
> choosing to believe in Him. That's what makes God a personal and loving
> God
> rather than a dictator or puppet master.
>
> Odd as it may seem to anyone who doesn't believe, I can see God in the way
> that 1) we as a group of intelligent people on this forum can discuss
> completely opposing opinions and still care enough to consider insulting,
> belittling, slandering and hating one another an intolerable concept; and
> 2)
> in all likelihood agree that peace and compassion completely trump greed
> and
> power in importance to life and survival together on this planet.
>
> Regards,
> Dedric
>
> On 9/17/06 7:12 PM, in article 450df091@linux, "Uptown Jimmy"
> <johnson314@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> The idea that one needs to believe in a god in order to have a strong
>> morals
>> is absurd, I think.
>>
>> Jimmy
>>
>>
>> "Dedric Terry" <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote in message
>> news:C1325038.358D%dterry@keyofd.net...
>>> Gene -
>>>
>>> You probably didn't realize it (so no offense), but your response pretty
>>> much confirms my assertion that the tendency of our country and even the
>>> world society, is to place blame for religious conflict, violence and
>>> religiously motivated terrorism anywhere but with the single largest
>>> growing, and currently most violent religion in the world. We ignore
>>> car
>>> bombings, suicide bombers, torched churches, thousands of tortured and
>>> murdered, exiled and ostracized people in favor of blaming the
>>> administration for anything and everything, as if Bush made the Pope
>>> quote
>> a
>>> Byzantine emperor by going to war in Iraq.
>>>
>>> Islam isn't the passive, peaceful, non-threatening, all-accepting
>>> religion
>>> our country seems to blindly want to believe. Some western Muslims
>>> might
>>> be, but just ask anyone who tried to believe in anything else in many of
>> the
>>> conservative Islamic countries of the world. I know, have talked to,
>>> and
>>> have heard missionaries to these countries speak - it's a different
>>> world
>>> from the free discussions and widely varying opinions we have here.
>> People
>>> die for converting to anything else, or their families do. At best,
>>> their
>>> families disown them and they sneak out of the country under threat of
>>> death. In fact it's the exact opposite of the "freedom" our country
>>> continually pushes the limits of. Odd that we would turn on our own
>> country
>>> in favor of supporting, or at least turning a blind eye to this kind of
>>> ideology, somehow believing that is the more politically correct thing
>>> to
>>> do.
>>>
>>> The problem I see isn't religion, but a lack of faith in God, and hence
>> any
>>> sense of direction and moral guidance. God gives us the choice to
>>> believe
>>> or not. Based on documents of their activities - in the name of Allah
>>> the
>>> 9/11 terrorists pretty much broke every one of the 10 commandments in 24
>>> hours. That may seem a trivial or even silly fact, but there is a sad,
>> and
>>> frightening irony there. Faith in God isn't what one should fear - it's
>>> believing in anything that conveniently appeases one's personal whims
>>> that
>>> is the true danger.... the terrorists proved that in one day. That also
>>> includes believing in nothing.
>>>
>>> As Blaise Pascal once said (paraphrased): if one believes in God and is
>>> wrong, at worst one has lived a good live and had some false hope as a
>> sense
>>> of comfort along the way; if one doesn't believe and is wrong, then at
>>> best, all is lost for eternity. This is the paradox that we should be
>>> considering, and yet the most fear-inducing thought is that the
>>> President
>>> might believe in something other than nothing. Is no belief really
>>> better
>>> than belief? What reference point for right and wrong accompanies
>> disbelief
>>> in anything higher than one's own decisions? What reference point for
>>> respect for other people's beliefs accompanies a lack of belief in any
>>> guideline for living life and having respect and compassion for others?
>>>
>>> It isn't the administration's fault that the Pope quoted a guy Islam
>> doesn't
>>> like just because he called like he saw it - something we do on this
>>> forum
>>> every single day, ironically. It also isn't Christianity's intent to
>>> take
>>> over the world, or the government. Far from it. The only goal is to
>>> give
>>> people a chance to decide. Yet, those that want to decide to not
>>> believe
>>> would rather take that right away and remove Christianity from public
>> view.
>>> The only way to force someone to remove their belief from public in a
>>> country that promotes the freedom to believe as one wishes, is to outlaw
>> it.
>>> Yet another paradox.
>>>
>>> Through our short sighted political glasses we want to see the world as
>>> a
>>> black and white, free-will, partisan vote where one's party always wins
>> and
>>> the decisions are always in our favor, but fail to see any validity in
>>> believing a God that gave us the very moral compass to maintain the
>> balance
>>> that kind of choice affords us. In essence we put our trust in the very
>>> thing we prove day in and day out to be one of the most fallible
>>> characteristics of humanity - political and relativistic ideology.
>>>
>>> I guess I ignored my own first comment....sorry about that.
>>>
>>> I should get back to mourning NI Battery 2's destruction of 10 hours of
>> work
>>> :-((....
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Dedric
>>>
>>> On 9/16/06 9:09 PM, in article 450cbc70$1@linux, "gene Lennon"
>>> <glennon@NOSPmyrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dedric Terry <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote:
>>>>> I don't want to start another religious or political thread -...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> These are frightening times. While the true neocons in the current
>>>> administration
>>>> have had a variety of political, financial and power-based reasons for
>>>> perusing
>>>> the war against Iraq, the president has had an even scarier motivation.
>>>>
>>>> Religion.
>>>>
>>>> If you missed it, this week Bush has announced the "Third Great
>> Awakening"
>>>> of the international religious struggle. This is a good thing as he
>>>> sees
>>>> it and it has been partially brought on by the new fight against
>> terrorists
>>>> (Translation - Due to his good work in God's name). A war that he
>> depicts
>>>> as "a confrontation between good and evil."
>>>> In 2001 he used the word "crusade" and got into quite a bit of trouble
>> (as
>>>> has the Pope), but he seems to have the gloves off now.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone imagine a worse direction for the world to be headed?
>>>>
>>>> Of course he also believes in the Rapture, so things could easily go
>> down
>>>> hill from here.
>>>>
>>>> More on the "Third Awakening":
>>>>
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09 /12/AR2006091201
>> 59
>>>> 4_pf.html
>>>>
>>>> Gene
>>>>
>>>
|
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|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71331 is a reply to message #71315] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 18:53 |
macle
Messages: 47
Registered: July 2006
|
Member |
|
|
>> It's a vast generalization to say the "the left" or "secularists" or
>> >> even "Christians" are demanding an apology from the Pope. I think a
>> >> whole lot of people think the Pope can say whatever he wants. It
> doesn't
>> >> matter to most non-Catholics in the USA and in reality, Papal
>> >> declarations are ignored by a fair number of Catholics here, too.
>> >> Obviously some Moslems are upset in some places, but how deep does
>> >> that
>> >> go? When black churches were burning in the USA, it would have been an
>> >> exaggeration to blame everyone in the USA for that.
>> >>
>> >> The fear of reason extends to the Catholic church which only very
>> >> recently apologized for the oppression of Galileo. The church hung on
>> >> tenaciously to the dogma of an earth-centered view of the universe
> while
>> >> denying the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which describes the
>> >> actual way the solar system works.
>> >>
>> >> It also extends to a few Christian sects who, feeling similarly
>> >> insecure, tenaciously cling to the notion that the earth is only about
>> >> 6,000 years old, by virtue of the biblical interpretations and clever
>> >> (at the time) calculations of an Irish Bishop several centuries ago,
> and
>> >> in the face of solid current scientific evidence to the contrary.
>> >>
>> >> The fear of reason extends to some (not all) Christian churches who,
>> >> feeling similarly insecure, deny the solid and ever-mounting evidence
> of
>> >> evolution, responding with dogma in psuedo-scientific clothing, and
>> >> who
>> >> seek to water down scientific education in the USA.
>> >>
>> >> The fear of reason extends to power hungry industries who pay big
>> >> bucks
>> >> to spread denial about global warming for short term gain. Who push to
>> >> control oil in the middle east with force. With our guns blazing, our
>> >> soldiers dying and our debt rising astronomically. And who sometimes
>> >> hide behind Christianity to do so.
>> >>
>> >> The fear of reason extends to some neoconservatives who find ways to
>> >> pretend that everyone is aligning against Christianity. And in
> spreading
>> >> this fear attempt to incite Christians to vote to keep them in power.
>> >> And in so pandering, help to continue the denial of reason and the
> focus
>> >> on the use of force.
>> >>
>> >> Not that I'll change your mind, DC, so go ahead and declare victory.
> ;^)
>> >>
>> >> Have a great week!
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> -Jamie
>> >> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> DC wrote:
>> >>> I thought this was worth reading if any of you are interested.
>> >>>
>> >>> Have a great Monday!
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> ----------------------------------------
>> >>>
>> >>> The Unholy Alliance Rolls Over the Pope
>> >>> By Andrew Walden
>> >>>
>> >>> In what has suddenly been made into a highly controversial
>> >>> speech, the day after September 11, at Bavaria's University of
>> >>> Regensberg, Pope Benedict describes Christian belief in a God
>> >>> whose words and acts are bound by reason, truth and the law of
>> >>> non-contradiction. Benedict contrasts this with Islamic belief
>> >>> in a God not bound by anything-including his own words. Benedict
>> >>> further contrasts Christian belief with that of secular humanists
>> >>> who see reason as being completely unbound of God.
>> >>>
>> >>> In response, both Islamists and secularists have demanded the
>> >>> Pope apologize. Benedict's speech is a work of enlightened
>> >>> genius. He has clearly laid out the differences between
>> >>> Christian culture and Islamic culture and the basis of the clash
>> >>> of civilizations we now experience as the War on Terror. His
>> >>> analysis also explains the underlying cause of the alliance
>> >>> between the western Left and the Islamofascist Right.
>> >>>
>> >>> Islamist reaction focuses on one sentence in the speech.
>> >>> Reaching back to 1391, Benedict quotes Byzantine Emperor Manuel
>> >>> II: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there
>> >>> you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
>> >>> to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
>> >>>
>> >>> Four days later, according to AP: "Pakistan's legislature
>> >>> unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite
>> >>> cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party
>> >>> likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of
>> >>> reviving the mentality of the Crusades.
>> >>>
>> >>> "Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict's remarks on Islam and
>> >>> jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that
>> >>> many fear could burst into violent protests like those that
>> >>> followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad."
>> >>>
>> >>> Reuters quoted other sources expressing fears for the Pope's
>> >>> safety and even fear of an attack on Vatican City.
>> >>>
>> >>> The Islamist reaction proves Manuel II's 600-year-old point. The
>> >>> reaction is not one of anger but a calculated attempt to force
>> >>> the Pope to parrot the PC line on Islam. Since Islam need not be
>> >>> internally consistent and it is not bound by reason, it's only
>> >>> objective can be to assert the power of a God who is so
>> >>> transcendent that He is not bound by anything. If man is created
>> >>> in God's image then by extension Islamic man is not bound by
>> >>> anything. (This explains the predilection on the part of some
>> >>> Muslims to lie.) Islamists are not responding to any 'offense' to
>> >>> their non-existent morality. They are asserting the only
>> >>> 'morality' they have-the will to power.
>> >>>
>> >>> "Will to Power" is a key element of Nietzsche 's philosophy-hence
>> >>> the root of the term, Islamofascist. Moreover the Western "Left'
>> >>> is today guided far more by Nietzsche existentialist thought than
>> >>> by Marxist thought-hence the alliance between the Western "Left"
>> >>> and the Islamofascist 'Right.'
>> >>>
>> >>> Reuters quotes an Indian Muslim leader doing precisely what
>> >>> Manuel II said they would: "Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric
>> >>> of New Delhi's historic Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque,
>> >>> extolled Muslims to 'respond in a manner which forces the Pope to
>> >>> apologize.'" Note they intend to use "force" not reason.
>> >>>
>> >>> Reuters quotes an unnamed diplomat pointing out the Pope was,
>> >>> "calling a spade a spade".
>> >>>
>> >>> The secularist mouthpiece, New York Times,editorializes, "Pope
>> >>> Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims.." This is false. The Pope's
>> >>> description of the Islamic God as being unbound by reason is not
>> >>> an insult, it is an Islamic article of faith. What Muslims and
>> >>> secularists fear is the Pope's decision to choose to enter
>> >>> dialogue asserting his belief in Christianity. How dare he not
>> >>> "apologize" for being a Christian? That is the so-called
>> >>> "insult."
>> >>>
>> >>> One might "reasonably" ask when will Muslims "apologize" for
>> >>> being Muslim? But they are not bound by reason to the point is
>> >>> lost on them.
>> >>>
>> >>> Amazingly the Times continues: "Muslim leaders the world over
>> >>> have demanded apologies. For many Muslims, holy war - jihad - is
>> >>> a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence." In saying
>> >>> this, the Times implicitly recognizes the Islamists are waging a
>> >>> propaganda jihad against the Pope and by extension against
>> >>> Christianity-and they explicitly endorse and join this jihad.
>> >>> The Times is saying to Islamists, 'we can join your 'spiritual'
>> >>> jihad, but not your violent jihad.
>> >>>
>> >>> The Times editors are living in a fool's paradise. The
>> >>> "spiritual" non-violent jihad of propaganda is merely the flip
>> >>> side of the violent jihad. Nowhere is that more clear than in
>> >>> the Islamist reaction to the Pope.
>> >>>
>> >>> With the Pope scheduled to visit Turkey in November the Islamists
>> >>> are rejecting any apology from Vatican spokespersons and demand
>> >>> to hear from the Pope himself. This would place raging mobs of
>> >>> semi-literate Islamist thugs in the position of forcing the
>> >>> leader of Christendom to bow before them.
>> >>>
>> >>> In this demand for submission they are joined by the secularist
>> >>> mouthpiece. In its September 16 edition the Times editorializes:
>> >>> "He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology." The
>> >>> secularists too seek the Pope's submission. Like the Islamists,
>> >>> the secularists are driven only by their will to power. While
>> >>> the Islamists represent their demented version of
>> >>> God--unrestrained by reason, the secularists represent their
>> >>> demented version of reason--unrestrained by God. They are united
>> >>> by their self-worshipping world view.
>> >>>
>> >>> It should be noted that the carefully staged "anger' from the
>> >>> Islamic world does not condemn Benedict's characterization of
>> >>> Islam as a religion where God's "will is not bound up with any of
>> >>> our categories, even that of rationality...(The Islamic) God is
>> >>>
|
|
|
|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71333 is a reply to message #71315] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 18:34 |
Deej [1]
Messages: 2149
Registered: January 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
rld,
>> >>> both are in decline.
>> >>>
>> >>> Where the force of reason is defeated, Islamist and secularist
>> >>> will meet in combat, just as Hitler's fascists broke their pact
>> >>> with the Soviet Union, invading in June, 1941 after the collapse
>> >>> of the allied forces on the western front.
>> >>>
>> >>> What the Islamists and the New York Times both fear is having to
>> >>> reply to the Pope's key point, borrowed from the Byzantine
>> >>> Emperor: "'Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos (word or
>> >>> reason) is contrary to the nature of God,'.. It is to this great
>> >>> logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in
>> >>> the dialogue of cultures."
>> >>>
>> >>> Their fear of reason can only lead the world to disaster.
>> >>>
>> >
>> >
>
>"gene Lennon" <glennon@NOSP.com> wrote:
>
>"James McCloskey" <excelsm@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Here, read this! The war with America started on 9/11.
>>
>>http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060918/D8K7B5UO1.html
>>
>>Now how do we stop them? Talk to them, apologize to them, convert to Islam?
>> Do you want to convert to Islam?
>>
>
>
>
>“An al-Qaida-linked extremist group...”
>
>The key word is group.
>
>
>A group of neo-Nazis won seats in this weeks elections in Germany.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/world/europe/17cnd-germany .html?_r=1&hp&ex=1158552000&en=ae34ff540e2ea150& amp;ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin
>
>This group does not speak for all Germans.
>
>A recent NYT article talks about the infiltration of the US Army with skinheads.
>People who kill you in a second if they don’t like what you say, or the
color
>of your skin.
>
> http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50713FE3B54 0C748CDDAE0894DE404482&showabstract=1
>
>This group does not speak for all members of the Armed Services or all Americans.
>
>The world is filled with small groups of extremists, even here in the USA.
>The trick when dealing with them is to stop them without turning them into
>figureheads or martyrs. Our blundering has had the opposite effect.
>
>On 9/11 a small group of extremists who were basically seen as outcasts
by
>the majority of the Muslim world attacked our country. Our actions since
>have doubled and doubled again the scope and severity of this problem.
>
>I am afraid you are right, if we continue on our current course we will
turn
>this into a world war.
>
>Gene
>
By the way Gene, we didn't start it they did, remember 9/11."Sarah" <sarahjane@sarahtonin.com> wrote:
>Yes, Don, you win. And if you're ever in town, I'll let you have one of
my
>Drop Top Amber Ales, or a Black Butte Porter. :)
>
>S
Just to be clear, my definition of victory was "not fighting",
rather than my having won the argument.
Someone is right here, and someone is wrong. If I am right, you
and some others will have some serious crow to eat. If you are
right, likewise for me and some others.
There is a point at which it is clear that no minds will change.
We have reached that point.
In the future, I would like us to commiserate together, rather
than say "I told you so" because the possible result of either
position could just **SUCK** huh?
Hence the "declaration".
DC
ps
Good friend of mine, (not a bushie by any means) dared to ask
some of his friends what their plan was, should the jihadis,
not the president, show themselves to be the real issue here.
these antiwar folks (long time friends of his BTW)literally
started yelling, spluttering and *chanting slogans* in his
face! We have avoided that. That is a victory.
So have a beer, and consider if the other guy has a point.
>
>
>"DC" <dc@spammersinhell.com> wrote in message news:450dccf6$1@linux...
>>
>> As long as we all have been yakking on these subjects, three
>> things have happened.
>>
>> 1. No one switched sides
>>
>> 2. Everyone learned something
>>
>> 3. Almost all of us have gotten much more skilled in being
>> nice to each other despite our differences.
>>
>>
>> I don't know about the rest of you, but I am going to declare
>> victory and have a beer...
>>
>> DC
>>
>
>"James McCloskey" <excelsm@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>I don't think we are going to have a choice. WHEN they take out a couple
>of American cities, will you still believe in talk? Will you care what
the
>rest of the world thinks of us?
>
>We should have crossed the border in to Pakistan and got Bin laden, now
what?
> Their not going to stop. The people or countries that harbor al-Qaida
are
>the enemies of the US. The head of the CIA said that they have a "vary
excellent
>idea of where Osama Bin laden is", but for political reasons they can't
go
>get him. So who do you think is protecting him?
>
>There is a lot more I could say, but the bottom line is we don't have the
>guts to do what is necessary. There are too many people in our country
that
>are weak minded and weak willed. They know they can destroy us because
our
>people are weak and divided.
>
>Think about who has been against us the whole way. There is a much bigger
>picture.
>
>James
>
A purely pragmatic question.
If the worst happens and a WMD goes off in a major US city, what would the
appropriate response be?
I’m not joking here, I think the possibility is high. I would like an honest
answer.
I’m not suggesting for a second that we should do nothing or we should blame
ourselves, but if the responsible people are a small percentage of the population
of a country or region, what should we do? Nuke the Middle East?
This is the time we should be talking about it. If we wait till it happens
we will be caught up in the moment and we could make decisions that literally
end civilization.
I lost friends on 9/11. I have not forgotten. However, I do not blame innocent
people for the actions of others.
“So who do you think is protecting him?”(Bin laden)
Our government!
GeneWe can disagree about that but the first line is the dictionary definition.
Cheers,
-Jamie
http://www.JamieKrutz.com
TCB wrote:
> You're confusing 'faith' with 'a willingness to take risks.' Animals take
> risks, to get food, create more animals, etc., but I doubt they have faith.
> One needs no faith to start businesses, invest money, get married, etc.
>
> Jamie K <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote:
>> Faith is complete trust or confidence in something or someone. Religious
>
>> faith is one form of faith but not the only definition of "faith."
>>
>> For example I have faith that if I drop a guitar pick it will find its
>> way to the floor based on the gravitational attraction it has to the
>> planet. I have faith that I'll breathe my next breath, that I'll see
>> tomorrow morning. I have faith that other people are put together much
>> like I am and that I can therefore relate to other folks.
>>
>> Without faith, people would not invest money. Without faith people would
>
>> not vote. Without faith people would not start businesses, hire other
>> people, raise children. Without faith people would not ride trains, fly
>
>> in planes or drive cars. Without faith no one would investigate
>> scientific questions about reality.
>>
>> While you can clearly have faith without religion, you cannot have
>> religion without faith. Religion depends on faith that one or more
>> deities (good and sometimes bad) exist, that their associated stories
>> actually occurred, and often, that there is some sort of afterlife.
>>
>> However, religious people believe in a variety of different deities.
>> Even those who believe in the same deity disagree, sometimes violently,
>
>> about the nature of their deity. Religions sometimes even disagree about
>
>> the nature of reality. If you want to base morality strictly on
>> religion, and you look around, you'll notice that religion can be a
>> somewhat chaotic basis unless...
>>
>> Ah, you might say, I want to base morality on MY religion. Well, you
>> just dissed the majority of religions. No problem because THEY ARE
>> WRONG. And people who believe in those religions may just be saying the
>
>> same thing about you and your religion. For those religions who are not
>
>> tolerant of other ideas, you may just have started a war.
>>
>> So perhaps it's BETTER, in our time, to have a system of justice that is
>
>> NOT based on a religion. But one which guarantees everyone the right to
>
>> practice the religion of their choice, guarantees other freedoms such as
>
>> we in the USA do in our Bill of Rights, encourages honesty and
>> integrity, while enforcing some common sense limits such as no human
>> sacrifices, a minimum age for marriage, no incest, no slavery, no
>> murder, no rape, no stealing, those sorts of things.
>>
>> What is viewed as morality beyond a fair justice system and common sense
>
>> rules of behavior can be left to each freely chosen religion to sort
>> out, like whether to restrict diet in some way, whether to wear a
>> certain type of clothing, how to pray, etc. But none of these additional
>
>> practices should be imposed on society as a whole.
>>
&
|
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|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71337 is a reply to message #71328] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 20:27 |
Deej [1]
Messages: 2149
Registered: January 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
/>
>>> As long as "morals" are only relative to each individual, they aren't
>>> absolute morals that would last longer than the time it takes to make
> the
>>> choice. We would just have 6.5 billion opinions. There would only be
> an
>>> ever changing perspective on what seems to "make sense" at the time, and
>>> based on this premise, even "making sense" would vary from person to person,
>>> day to day, minute to minute. In that case, our prisons would either
> be
>>> filled with innocent people simply judged "wrong" at the time because
> their
>>> choices didn't match the preferences of the majority; or we wouldn't have
>>> prisons, or likely even organized societies.
>>>
>>> But is the majority always right? How would we know if there were no
>>> absolutes that supercede the majority in some form?
>>>
>>> If there were no right and wrong, there would be no consequences of either,
>>> or at least we wouldn't view the outcome as a good or bad consequence
> - it
>>> would just be another event in time.
>>>
>>> But by grace and as a gift of freedom, God gave us a choice, both in whether
>>> to believe in Him and whether to make right or wrong decisions. With
> moral
>>> absolutes (God's word) as a reference we have a way to evaluate drastically
>>> differing situations on an equivalent basis; with consistency in reasoning
>>> and compassion; by choice and instinct rather than puppetry. Even when
> we
>>> choose to do wrong, He is willing to forgive us. Without that option
> to
>>> choose, balanced by God's grace and forgiveness, there would be no power
> in
>>> choosing to believe in Him. That's what makes God a personal and loving
> God
>>> rather than a dictator or puppet master.
>>>
>>> Odd as it may seem to anyone who doesn't believe, I can see God in the
> way
>>> that 1) we as a group of intelligent people on this forum can discuss
>>> completely opposing opinions and still care enough to consider insulting,
>>> belittling, slandering and hating one another an intolerable concept;
> and 2)
>>> in all likelihood agree that peace and compassion completely trump greed
> and
>>> power in importance to life and survival together on this planet.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Dedric
>>>
>>> On 9/17/06 7:12 PM, in article 450df091@linux, "Uptown Jimmy"
>>> <johnson314@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The idea that one needs to believe in a god in order to have a strong
> morals
>>>> is absurd, I think.
>>>>
>>>> Jimmy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Dedric Terry" <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:C1325038.358D%dterry@keyofd.net...
>>>>> Gene -
>>>>>
>>>>> You probably didn't realize it (so no offense), but your response pretty
>>>>> much confirms my assertion that the tendency of our country and even
> the
>>>>> world society, is to place blame for religious conflict, violence and
>>>>> religiously motivated terrorism anywhere but with the single largest
>>>>> growing, and currently most violent religion in the world. We ignore
> car
>>>>> bombings, suicide bombers, torched churches, thousands of tortured and
>>>>> murdered, exiled and ostracized people in favor of blaming the
>>>>> administration for anything and everything, as if Bush made the Pope
> quote
>>>> a
>>>>> Byzantine emperor by going to war in Iraq.
>>>>>
>>>>> Islam isn't the passive, peaceful, non-threatening, all-accepting religion
>>>>> our country seems to blindly want to believe. Some western Muslims
> might
>>>>> be, but just ask anyone who tried to believe in anything else in many
> of
>>>> the
>>>>> conservative Islamic countries of the world. I know, have talked to,
> and
>>>>> have heard missionaries to these countries speak - it's a different
> world
>>>>> from the free discussions and widely varying opinions we have here.
>>>> People
>>>>> die for converting to anything else, or their families do. At best,
> their
>>>>> families disown them and they sneak out of the country under threat
> of
>>>>> death. In fact it's the exact opposite of the "freedom" our country
>>>>> continually pushes the limits of. Odd that we would turn on our own
>>>> country
>>>>> in favor of supporting, or at least turning a blind eye to this kind
> of
>>>>> ideology, somehow believing that is the more politically correct thing
> to
>>>>> do.
>>>>>
>>>>> The problem I see isn't religion, but a lack of faith in God, and hence
>>>> any
>>>>> sense of direction and moral guidance. God gives us the choice to believe
>>>>> or not. Based on documents of their activities - in the name of Allah
> the
>>>>> 9/11 terrorists pretty much broke every one of the 10 commandments in
> 24
>>>>> hours. That may seem a trivial or even silly fact, but there is a sad,
>>>> and
>>>>> frightening irony there. Faith in God isn't what one should fear -
> it's
>>>>> believing in anything that conveniently appeases one's personal whims
> that
>>>>> is the true danger.... the terrorists proved that in one day. That
> also
>>>>> includes believing in nothing.
>>>>>
>>>>> As Blaise Pascal once said (paraphrased): if one believes in God and
> is
>>>>> wrong, at worst one has lived a good live and had some false hope as
> a
>>>> sense
>>>>> of comfort along the way; if one doesn't believe and is wrong, then
> at
>>>>> best, all is lost for eternity. This is the paradox that we should
> be
>>>>> considering, and yet the most fear-inducing thought is that the President
>>>>> might believe in something other than nothing. Is no belief really
> better
>>>>> than belief? What reference point for right and wrong accompanies
>>>> disbelief
>>>>> in anything higher than one's own decisions? What reference point for
>>>>> respect for other people's beliefs accompanies a lack of belief in any
>>>>> guideline for living life and having respect and compassion for others?
>>>>>
>>>>> It isn't the administration's fault that the Pope quoted a guy Islam
>>>> doesn't
>>>>> like just because he called like he saw it - something we do on this
> forum
>>>>> every single day, ironically. It also isn't Christianity's intent to
> take
>>>>> over the world, or the government. Far from it. The only goal is to
> give
>>>>> people a chance to decide. Yet, those that want to decide to not believe
>>>>> would rather take that right away and remove Christianity from public
>>>> view.
>>>>> The only way to force someone to remove their belief from public in
> a
>>>>> country that promotes the freedom to believe as one wishes, is to outlaw
>>>> it.
>>>>> Yet another paradox.
>>>>>
>>>>> Through our short sighted political glasses we want to see the world
> as a
>>>>> black and white, free-will, partisan vote where one's party always wins
>>>> and
>>>>> the decisions are always in our favor, but fail to see any validity
> in
>>>>> believing a God that gave us the very moral compass to maintain the
>>>> balance
>>>>> that kind of choice affords us. In essence we put our trust in the
> very
>>>>> thing we prove day in and day out to be one of the most fallible
>>>>> characteristics of humanity - political and relativistic ideology.
>>>>>
>>>>> I guess I ignored my own first comment....sorry about that.
>>>>>
>>>>> I should get back to mourning NI Battery 2's destruction of 10 hours
> of
>>>> work
>>>>> :-((....
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Dedric
>>>>>
>>>>> On 9/16/06 9:09 PM, in article 450cbc70$1@linux, "gene Lennon"
>>>>> <glennon@NOSPmyrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dedric Terry <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> I don't want to start another religious or political thread -...
>>>>>> These are frightening times. While the true neocons in the current
>>>>>> administration
>>>>>> have had a variety of political, financial and power-based reasons
> for
>>>>>> perusing
>>>>>> the war against Iraq, the president has had an even scarier motivation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Religion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you missed it, this week Bush has announced the "Third Great
>>>> Awakening"
>>>>>> of the international religious struggle. This is a good thing as he
> sees
>>>>>> it and it has been partially brought on by the new fight against
>>>> terrorists
>>>>>> (Translation - Due to his good work in God's name). A war that he
>>>> depicts
>>>>>> as "a confrontation between good and evil."
>>>>>> In 2001 he used the word "crusade" and got into quite a bit of trouble
>>>> (as
>>>>>> has the Pope), but he seems to have the gloves off now.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can anyone imagine a worse direction for the world to be headed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course he also believes in the Rapture, so things could easily go
>>>> down
>>>>>> hill from here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> More on the "Third Awakening":
>>>>>>
>>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09 /12/AR2006091201
>>>> 59
>>>>>> 4_pf.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Gene
>>>>>>
>> `
>"Tony Benson" <tony@standinghampton.com> wrote:
>Hi Dedric,
>
>Don't take my comments as an indication that I have no "faith" in a higher
>power, but couldn't our ability to feel empathy be one possible reason that
>the majority of people might have similar morals. I don't think an atheist
>knows murder is wrong just because god said "thou shalt not kill". I think
>the golden rule has a lot to do with it. Over time, we have learned as
>empathetic beings what is ultimately right and wrong. At least in the very
>broad sense. Now, how we got to the point where we feel such a vast nu
|
|
|
|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71339 is a reply to message #71337] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 21:34 |
Jamie K
Messages: 1115
Registered: July 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
br />
>>>> The fear of reason extends to the Catholic church which only very
>>>> recently apologized for the oppression of Galileo. The church hung on
>>>> tenaciously to the dogma of an earth-centered view of the universe
> while
>>>> denying the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which describes the
>>>> actual way the solar system works.
>>>>
>>>> It also extends to a few Christian sects who, feeling similarly
>>>> insecure, tenaciously cling to the notion that the earth is only about
>>>> 6,000 years old, by virtue of the biblical interpretations and clever
>>>> (at the time) calculations of an Irish Bishop several centuries ago,
> and
>>>> in the face of solid current scientific evidence to the contrary.
>>>>
>>>> The fear of reason extends to some (not all) Christian churches who,
>>>> feeling similarly insecure, deny the solid and ever-mounting evidence
> of
>>>> evolution, responding with dogma in psuedo-scientific clothing, and who
>>>> seek to water down scientific education in the USA.
>>>>
>>>> The fear of reason extends to power hungry industries who pay big bucks
>>>> to spread denial about global warming for short term gain. Who push to
>>>> control oil in the middle east with force. With our guns blazing, our
>>>> soldiers dying and our debt rising astronomically. And who sometimes
>>>> hide behind Christianity to do so.
>>>>
>>>> The fear of reason extends to some neoconservatives who find ways to
>>>> pretend that everyone is aligning against Christianity. And in
> spreading
>>>> this fear attempt to incite Christians to vote to keep them in power.
>>>> And in so pandering, help to continue the denial of reason and the
> focus
>>>> on the use of force.
>>>>
>>>> Not that I'll change your mind, DC, so go ahead and declare victory.
> ;^)
>>>> Have a great week!
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> -Jamie
>>>> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> DC wrote:
>>>>> I thought this was worth reading if any of you are interested.
>>>>>
>>>>> Have a great Monday!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> The Unholy Alliance Rolls Over the Pope
>>>>> By Andrew Walden
>>>>>
>>>>> In what has suddenly been made into a highly controversial
>>>>> speech, the day after September 11, at Bavaria’s University of
>>>>> Regensberg, Pope Benedict describes Christian belief in a God
>>>>> whose words and acts are bound by reason, truth and the law of
>>>>> non-contradiction. Benedict contrasts this with Islamic belief
>>>>> in a God not bound by anything—including his own words. Benedict
>>>>> further contrasts Christian belief with that of secular humanists
>>>>> who see reason as being completely unbound of God.
>>>>>
>>>>> In response, both Islamists and secularists have demanded the
>>>>> Pope apologize. Benedict’s speech is a work of enlightened
>>>>> genius. He has clearly laid out the differences between
>>>>> Christian culture and Islamic culture and the basis of the clash
>>>>> of civilizations we now experience as the War on Terror. His
>>>>> analysis also explains the underlying cause of the alliance
>>>>> between the western Left and the Islamofascist Right.
>>>>>
>>>>> Islamist reaction focuses on one sentence in the speech.
>>>>> Reaching back to 1391, Benedict quotes Byzantine Emperor Manuel
>>>>> II: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there
>>>>> you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
>>>>> to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
>>>>>
>>>>> Four days later, according to AP: “Pakistan's legislature
>>>>> unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite
>>>>> cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party
>>>>> likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of
>>>>> reviving the mentality of the Crusades.
>>>>>
>>>>> “Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict's remarks on Islam and
>>>>> jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that
>>>>> many fear could burst into violent protests like those that
>>>>> followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.”
>>>>>
>>>>> Reuters quoted other sources expressing fears for the Pope’s
>>>>> safety and even fear of an attack on Vatican City.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Islamist reaction proves Manuel II’s 600-year-old point. The
>>>>> reaction is not one of anger but a calculated attempt to force
>>>>> the Pope to parrot the PC line on Islam. Since Islam need not be
>>>>> internally consistent and it is not bound by reason, it’s only
>>>>> objective can be to assert the power of a God who is so
>>>>> transcendent that He is not bound by anything. If man is created
>>>>> in God’s image then by extension Islamic man is not bound by
>>>>> anything. (This explains the predilection on the part of some
>>>>> Muslims to lie.) Islamists are not responding to any ‘offense’ to
>>>>> their non-existent morality. They are asserting the only
>>>>> ‘morality’ they have—the will to power.
>>>>>
>>>>> “Will to Power” is a key element of Nietzsche ’s philosophy—hence
>>>>> the root of the term, Islamofascist. Moreover the Western “Left’
>>>>> is today guided far more by Nietzsche existentialist thought than
>>>>> by Marxist thought—hence the alliance between the Western “Left”
>>>>> and the Islamofascist ‘Right.’
>>>>>
>>>>> Reuters quotes an Indian Muslim leader doing precisely what
>>>>> Manuel II said they would: “Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric
>>>>> of New Delhi's historic Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque,
>>>>> extolled Muslims to ‘respond in a manner which forces the Pope to
>>>>> apologize.’” Note they intend to use “force” not reason.
>>>>>
>>>>> Reuters quotes an unnamed diplomat pointing out the Pope was,
>>>>> “calling a spade a spade”.
>>>>>
>>>>> The secularist mouthpiece, New York Times,editorializes, “Pope
>>>>> Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims….” This is false. The Pope’s
>>>>> description of the Islamic God as being unbound by reason is not
>>>>> an insult, it is an Islamic article of faith. What Muslims and
>>>>> secularists fear is the Pope’s decision to choose to enter
>>>>> dialogue asserting his belief in Christianity. How dare he not
>>>>> “apologize” for being a Christian? That is the so-called
>>>>> “insult.”
>>>>>
>>>>> One might “reasonably” ask when will Muslims “apologize” for
>>>>> being Muslim? But they are not bound by reason to the point is
>>>>> lost on them.
>>>>>
>>>>> Amazingly the Times continues: “Muslim leaders the world over
>>>>> have demanded apologies… For many Muslims, holy war — jihad — is
>>>>> a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence.” In saying
>>>>> this, the Times implicitly recognizes the Islamists are waging a
>>>>> propaganda jihad against the Pope and by extension against
>>>>> Christianity—and they explicitly endorse and join this jihad.
>>>>> The Times is saying to Islamists, ‘we can join your ‘spiritual’
>>>>> jihad, but not your violent jihad.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Times editors are living in a fool’s paradise. The
>>>>> “spiritual” non-violent jihad of propaganda is merely the flip
>>>>> side of the violent jihad. Nowhere is that more clear than in
>>>>> the Islamist reaction to the Pope.
>>>>>
>>>>> With the Pope scheduled to visit Turkey in November the Islamists
>>>>> are rejecting any apology from Vatican spokespersons and demand
>>>>> to hear from the Pope himself. This would place raging mobs of
>>>>> semi-literate Islamist thugs in the position of forcing the
>>>>> leader of Christendom to bow before them.
>>>>>
>>>>> In this demand for submission they are joined by the secularist
>>>>> mouthpiece. In its September 16 edition the Times editorializes:
>>>>> “He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology…” The
>>>>> secularists too seek the Pope’s submission. Like the Islamists,
>>>>> the secularists are driven only by their will to power. While
>>>>> the Islamists represent their demented version of
>>>>> God--unrestrained by reason, the secularists represent their
>>>>> demented version of reason--unrestrained by God. They are united
>>>>> by their self-worshipping world view.
>>>>>
>>>>> It should be noted that the carefully staged “anger’ from the
>>>>> Islamic world does not condemn Benedict’s characterization of
>>>>> Islam as a religion where God’s “will is not bound up with any of
>>>>> our categories, even that of rationality...(The Islamic) God is
>>>>> not bound even by his own word….” This is not seen as an insult.
>>>>> Islam embraces this description. In offering this description of
>>>>> Islam, Benedict refers to the views of leading modern French
>>>>> Islamist R. Arnaldez as discussed in the writings of Professor
>>>>> Theodore Khoury of Munster.
>>>>>
>>>>> Likewise the secularists express no dismay at the pope’s
>>>>> characterization of a secularist as: “(A) subject (who) then
>>>>> decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers
>>>>> tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective ‘conscience’
>>>>> becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical.”
>>>>>
>>>>> Benedict asserts that without reason, or without God, there can
>>>>> be no modern system of morality. He explains, “In this
>>>>> way…ethics and religion lose their power to create a community
>>>>> and become (instead) a completely personal matter.”
>>>>>
>>>>> Both Islamist and secularist seek to break God and reason apart.
>>>>> Each claims superiority over the Christian West. They believe
>>>>> absolute moral license makes them powerful. As globalization
>>>>> carries the Western tradition of reason throughout the world,
>>>>> both are in decline.
>>>>>
>>>>> Where the force of reason is defeated, Islamist and secularist
>>>>> will meet in combat, just as Hitler’s fascists broke their pact
>>>>> with the Soviet Union, invading in June, 1941 after the collapse
>>>>> of the allied forces on the western front.
>>>>>
>>>>> What the Islamists and the New York Times both fear is having to
>>>>> reply to the Pope’s key point, borrowed from the Byzantine
>>>>> Emperor: “‘Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos (word or
>>>>> reason) is contrary to the nature of God,’.… It is to this great
>>>>> logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in
>>>>> the dialogue of cultures.”
>>>>>
>>>>> Their fear of reason can only lead the world to disaster.
>>>>>
>>>
>
>"Without God, all is permitted."
A few questions about that assertion:
1) Which God? Your God or anyone's God? If your God, are you then asking
for everyone to convert? If everyone doesn't convert will there be a
head tax on those who don't?
2) When considering the non-deity case, why should we assume a sociopath
as the arbiter of morality?
3) Pretty much all HAS been permitted in the name of a deity at one time
or another. Sociopaths are not limited to the non-religious. How would
you deal with religious sociopaths acting in the name of declared morality?
Cheers,
-Jamie
http://www.JamieKrutz.com
DC wrote:
> "Tony Benson" <tony@standinghampton.com> wrote:
>> Hi Dedric,
>>
>> Don't take my comments as an indication that I have no "faith" in a higher
>
>> power, but couldn't our ability to feel empathy be one possible reason that
>
>> the majority of people might have similar morals. I don't think an atheist
>
>> knows murder is wrong just because god said "thou shalt not kill". I think
>
>> the golden rule has a lot to do with it. Over time, we have learned as
>> empathetic beings what is ultimately right and wrong. At least in the very
>
>> broad sense. Now, how we got to
|
|
|
|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71341 is a reply to message #71339] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 22:08 |
Deej [1]
Messages: 2149
Registered: January 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
t;>>> best, all is lost for eternity. This is the paradox that we should
>> be
>>>>>> considering, and yet the most fear-inducing thought is that the President
>>>>>> might believe in something other than nothing. Is no belief really
>> better
>>>>>> than belief? What reference point for right and wrong accompanies
>>>>> disbelief
>>>>>> in anything higher than one's own decisions? What reference point
for
>>>>>> respect for other people's beliefs accompanies a lack of belief in
any
>>>>>> guideline for living life and having respect and compassion for others?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It isn't the administration's fault that the Pope quoted a guy Islam
>>>>> doesn't
>>>>>> like just because he called like he saw it - something we do on this
>> forum
>>>>>> every single day, ironically. It also isn't Christianity's intent
to
>> take
>>>>>> over the world, or the government. Far from it. The only goal is
to
>> give
>>>>>> people a chance to decide. Yet, those that want to decide to not
believe
>>>>>> would rather take that right away and remove Christianity from public
>>>>> view.
>>>>>> The only way to force someone to remove their belief from public in
>> a
>>>>>> country that promotes the freedom to believe as one wishes, is to
outlaw
>>>>> it.
>>>>>> Yet another paradox.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Through our short sighted political glasses we want to see the world
>> as a
>>>>>> black and white, free-will, partisan vote where one's party always
wins
>>>>> and
>>>>>> the decisions are always in our favor, but fail to see any validity
>> in
>>>>>> believing a God that gave us the very moral compass to maintain the
>>>>> balance
>>>>>> that kind of choice affords us. In essence we put our trust in the
>> very
>>>>>> thing we prove day in and day out to be one of the most fallible
>>>>>> characteristics of humanity - political and relativistic ideology.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I guess I ignored my own first comment....sorry about that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I should get back to mourning NI Battery 2's destruction of 10 hours
>> of
>>>>> work
>>>>>> :-((....
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Dedric
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 9/16/06 9:09 PM, in article 450cbc70$1@linux, "gene Lennon"
>>>>>> <glennon@NOSPmyrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dedric Terry <dterry@keyofd.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>> I don't want to start another religious or political thread -...
>>>>>>> These are frightening times. While the true neocons in the current
>>>>>>> administration
>>>>>>> have had a variety of political, financial and power-based reasons
>> for
>>>>>>> perusing
>>>>>>> the war against Iraq, the president has had an even scarier motivation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Religion.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you missed it, this week Bush has announced the "Third Great
>>>>> Awakening"
>>>>>>> of the international religious struggle. This is a good thing as
he
>> sees
>>>>>>> it and it has been partially brought on by the new fight against
>>>>> terrorists
>>>>>>> (Translation - Due to his good work in God's name). A war that he
>>>>> depicts
>>>>>>> as "a confrontation between good and evil."
>>>>>>> In 2001 he used the word "crusade" and got into quite a bit of trouble
>>>>> (as
>>>>>>> has the Pope), but he seems to have the gloves off now.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Can anyone imagine a worse direction for the world to be headed?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Of course he also believes in the Rapture, so things could easily
go
>>>>> down
>>>>>>> hill from here.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> More on the "Third Awakening":
>>>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09 /12/AR2006091201
>>>>> 59
>>>>>>> 4_pf.html
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Gene
>>>>>>>
>>> `
>>Do we have any money to pay him? I don't think he's gonna work for free.
;oP
"Aaron Allen" <know-spam@not_here.dude> wrote in message
news:450e9b9e@linux...
> Find out if dude is interested in writing a windows Vista and OS-x driver
:)
>
> AA
>
>
> "DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message
> news:450e471d$1@linux...
> > He wrote the software program that MRI machines are using these days.
> > Very
> > interesting guy. I'm mastering a project for his wife. He was pretty
> > interested in the Paris program. His wife is pretty well known in the LA
> > music community and he digs this stuff. I may ask him if he could write
a
> > delay compensation applet for Paris. He really got a chuckle out of
> > Frankencomp.......said he's built a few similar monstrosities himself.
> > They
> > will be back over here tomorrow night.
> >
> > ;o)
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>I don't see us overreacting Jamie. However, if there is indication of some
sort of major threat, do we run and tell the NY times or do we blow the
threat away before it pays us a visit?
"Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450f0b12@linux...
>
> Of course they came out with a blustery ultimatum. That's not news, it's
> an old pattern. It works for them to sit back and suggest that others do
> something via terror-grams such as this. If it makes you afraid as well,
> my guess is they would see that as a bonus.
>
> By goading the USA into overreacting it helps them grow, raise money and
> convince others to actually see us as evil and act accordingly. It
> works, we keep falling for it. OTOH, for those here with a declared
> interest in emptying the US treasury, it's likewise beneficial to have
> the specter of an enemy out there. Fear sells.
>
> We have yet to actually declare war on anyone in this whole mess. How do
> you declare war on a tactic?
>
> Forced conversion and head taxes would go over like a lead balloon in
> the USA. Not gonna happen. We're far more sectarian than, say, Iraq.
>
> Responsible leadership is needed in the world to calm extremist
> tendencies on all sides and help rational people who are trying to get
> by in worsening times. At the same time we need to be, and are
> attempting to be, vigilant against any self righteous group with
> fantasies of violence in the USA.
>
> Any rush to some sort of "holy war" is irrational. There is nothing holy
> about war.
>
> Cheers,
> -Jamie
> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>
>
>
> DJ wrote:
> > I haven't seen us react with irrationality.............yet. Al Quaeda
just
> > came out with an ultimatim stating that it's full on war now and the
west
> > will be destroyed. The only way to save ourselves is to convert to
Islam. So
> > where to you draw the line between irrationality and self defense?
> >
> >
> > "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450ee7ef@linux...
> >> Let's keep from reacting to irrationality with irrationality of our
own.
> >> There's a lot of fear mongering. Chicken Little is back.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> -Jamie
> >> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
> >>
> >>
> >> DJ wrote:
> >>> It doesn't matter at all whether this was the Pope. The bottom line is
> > that
> >>> it is rationality as opposed to irrationality.
> >>>
> >>> "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message
news:450ec970@linux...
> >>>> The Catholic church doesn't speak for Christianity. Certainly not for
> >>>> Lutherans, and for good reason.
> >>>>
> >>>> A Pope criticizing other religions (even other Christian sects, even
> >>>> other Catholics) is nothing new. Certainly much harsher things have
> > been
> >>>> said about Islam by some (not all) extreme fundamentalist Christians.
> >>>> And certainly much harsher things have been said by certain extremist
> >>>> Islamists about Christianity. The more extremist of both camps seem
to
> >>>> be spoiling to relive the crusades. With some of the more power
hungry
> >>>> ready to endanger civilization by attempting to incite religious wars
> >>>> for their own questionable ends.
> >>>>
> >>>> It's a vast generalization to say the "the left" or "secularists" or
> >>>> even "Christians" are demanding an apology from the Pope. I think a
> >>>> whole lot of people think the Pope can say whatever he wants. It
> > doesn't
> >>>> matter to most non-Catholics in the USA and in reality, Papal
> >>>> declarations are ignored by a fair number of Catholics here, too.
> >>>> Obviously some Moslems are upset in some places, but how deep does
that
> >>>> go? When black churches were burning in the USA, it would have been
an
> >>>> exaggeration to blame everyone in the USA for that.
> >>>>
> >>>> The fear of reason extends to the Catholic church which only very
> >>>> recently apologized for the oppression of Galileo. The church hung on
> >>>> tenaciously to the dogma of an earth-centered view of the universe
> > while
> >>>> denying the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which describes the
> >>>> actual way the solar system works.
> >>>>
> >>>> It also extends to a few Christian sects who, feeling similarly
> >>>> insecure, tenaciously cling to the notion that the earth is only
about
> >>>> 6,000 years old, by virtue of the biblical interpretations and clever
> >>>> (at the time) calculations of an Irish Bishop several centuries ago,
> > and
> >>>> in the face of solid current scientific evidence to the contrary.
> >>>>
> >>>> The fear of reason extends to some (not all) Christian churches who,
> >>>> feeling similarly insecure, deny the solid and ever-mounting evidence
> > of
> >>>> evolution, responding with dogma in psuedo-scientific clothing, and
who
> >>>> seek to water down scientific education in the USA.
> >>>>
> >>>> The fear of reason extends to power hungry industries who pay big
bucks
> >>>> to spread denial about global warming for short term gain. Who push
to
> >>>> control oil in the middle east with force. With our guns blazing, our
> >>>> soldiers dying and our debt rising astronomically. And who sometimes
> >>>> hide behind Christianity to do so.
> >>>>
> >>>> The fear of reason extends to some neoconservatives who find ways to
> >>>> pretend that everyone is aligning against Christianity. And in
> > spreading
> >>>> this fear attempt to incite Christians to vote to keep them in power.
> >>>> And in so pandering, help to continue the denial of reason and the
> > focus
> >>>> on the use of force.
> >>>>
> >>>> Not that I'll change your mind, DC, so go ahead and declare victory.
> > ;^)
> >>>> Have a great week!
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>> -Jamie
> >>>> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> DC wrote:
> >>>>> I thought this was worth reading if any of you are interested.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Have a great Monday!
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ----------------------------------------
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The Unholy Alliance Rolls Over the Pope
> >>>>> By Andrew Walden
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In what has suddenly been made into a highly controversial
> >>>>> speech, the day after September 11, at Bavaria’s University of
> >>>>> Regensberg, Pope Benedict describes Christian belief in a God
> >>>>> whose words and acts are bound by reason, truth and the law of
> >>>>> non-contradiction. Benedict contrasts this with Islamic belief
> >>>>> in a God not bound by anything—including his own words. Benedict
> >>>>> further contrasts Christian belief with that of secular humanists
> >>>>> who see reason as being completely unbound of God.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In response, both Islamists and secularists have demanded the
> >>>>> Pope apologize. Benedict’s speech is a work of enlightened
> >>>>> genius. He has clearly laid out the differences between
> >>>>> Christian culture and Islamic culture and the basis of the clash
> >>>>> of civilizations we now experience as the War on Terror. His
> >>>>> analysis also explains the underlying cause of the alliance
> >>>>> between the western Left and the Islamofascist Right.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Islamist reaction focuses on one sentence in the speech.
> >>>>> Reaching back to 1391, Benedict quotes Byzantine Emperor Manuel
> >>>>> II: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there
> >>>>> you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
> >>>>> to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Four days later, according to AP: “Pakistan's legislature
> >>>>> unanimously condemned Pope Benedict X
|
|
|
|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71343 is a reply to message #71341] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 23:00 |
Jamie K
Messages: 1115
Registered: July 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
>>>>>
> >>>>> “Will to Power” is a key element of Nietzsche ’s philosophy—hence
> >>>>> the root of the term, Islamofascist. Moreover the Western “Left’
> >>>>> is today guided far more by Nietzsche existentialist thought than
> >>>>> by Marxist thought—hence the alliance between the Western “Left”
> >>>>> and the Islamofascist ‘Right.’
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Reuters quotes an Indian Muslim leader doing precisely what
> >>>>> Manuel II said they would: “Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric
> >>>>> of New Delhi's historic Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque,
> >>>>> extolled Muslims to ‘respond in a manner which forces the Pope to
> >>>>> apologize.’” Note they intend to use “force” not reason.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Reuters quotes an unnamed diplomat pointing out the Pope was,
> >>>>> “calling a spade a spade”.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The secularist mouthpiece, New York Times,editorializes, “Pope
> >>>>> Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims….” This is false. The Pope’s
> >>>>> description of the Islamic God as being unbound by reason is not
> >>>>> an insult, it is an Islamic article of faith. What Muslims and
> >>>>> secularists fear is the Pope’s decision to choose to enter
> >>>>> dialogue asserting his belief in Christianity. How dare he not
> >>>>> “apologize” for being a Christian? That is the so-called
> >>>>> “insult.”
> >>>>>
> >>>>> One might “reasonably” ask when will Muslims “apologize” for
> >>>>> being Muslim? But they are not bound by reason to the point is
> >>>>> lost on them.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Amazingly the Times continues: “Muslim leaders the world over
> >>>>> have demanded apologies… For many Muslims, holy war — jihad — is
> >>>>> a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence.” In saying
> >>>>> this, the Times implicitly recognizes the Islamists are waging a
> >>>>> propaganda jihad against the Pope and by extension against
> >>>>> Christianity—and they explicitly endorse and join this jihad.
> >>>>> The Times is saying to Islamists, ‘we can join your ‘spiritual’
> >>>>> jihad, but not your violent jihad.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The Times editors are living in a fool’s paradise. The
> >>>>> “spiritual” non-violent jihad of propaganda is merely the flip
> >>>>> side of the violent jihad. Nowhere is that more clear than in
> >>>>> the Islamist reaction to the Pope.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> With the Pope scheduled to visit Turkey in November the Islamists
> >>>>> are rejecting any apology from Vatican spokespersons and demand
> >>>>> to hear from the Pope himself. This would place raging mobs of
> >>>>> semi-literate Islamist thugs in the position of forcing the
> >>>>> leader of Christendom to bow before them.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In this demand for submission they are joined by the secularist
> >>>>> mouthpiece. In its September 16 edition the Times editorializes:
> >>>>> “He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology…” The
> >>>>> secularists too seek the Pope’s submission. Like the Islamists,
> >>>>> the secularists are driven only by their will to power. While
> >>>>> the Islamists represent their demented version of
> >>>>> God--unrestrained by reason, the secularists represent their
> >>>>> demented version of reason--unrestrained by God. They are united
> >>>>> by their self-worshipping world view.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It should be noted that the carefully staged “anger’ from the
> >>>>> Islamic world does not condemn Benedict’s characterization of
> >>>>> Islam as a religion where God’s “will is not bound up with any of
> >>>>> our categories, even that of rationality...(The Islamic) God is
> >>>>> not bound even by his own word….” This is not seen as an insult.
> >>>>> Islam embraces this description. In offering this description of
> >>>>> Islam, Benedict refers to the views of leading modern French
> >>>>> Islamist R. Arnaldez as discussed in the writings of Professor
> >>>>> Theodore Khoury of Munster.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Likewise the secularists express no dismay at the pope’s
> >>>>> characterization of a secularist as: “(A) subject (who) then
> >>>>> decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers
> >>>>> tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective ‘conscience’
> >>>>> becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical.”
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Benedict asserts that without reason, or without God, there can
> >>>>> be no modern system of morality. He explains, “In this
> >>>>> way…ethics and religion lose their power to create a community
> >>>>> and become (instead) a completely personal matter.”
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Both Islamist and secularist seek to break God and reason apart.
> >>>>> Each claims superiority over the Christian West. They believe
> >>>>> absolute moral license makes them powerful. As globalization
> >>>>> carries the Western tradition of reason throughout the world,
> >>>>> both are in decline.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Where the force of reason is defeated, Islamist and secularist
> >>>>> will meet in combat, just as Hitler’s fascists broke their pact
> >>>>> with the Soviet Union, invading in June, 1941 after the collapse
> >>>>> of the allied forces on the western front.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> What the Islamists and the New York Times both fear is having to
> >>>>> reply to the Pope’s key point, borrowed from the Byzantine
> >>>>> Emperor: “‘Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos (word or
> >>>>> reason) is contrary to the nature of God,’.… It is to this great
> >>>>> logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in
> >>>>> the dialogue of cultures.”
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Their fear of reason can only lead the world to disaster.
> >>>>>
> >>>
> >
> >Wow...
When I was recording Beyond 2000, in the 80's, (87 I think), we went to Bell
Labs in New Jersey and they were just starting to work on a laser chip for
computing...it was big...about the size of a dining room table, but they had
it switching on and off....embryonic then.
Those guys there had dream jobs...PhD's, and all they had to do was dream,
and think of "what is / what if...."
--
Martin Harrington
www.lendanear-sound.com
"DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message
news:450ec8f5@linux...
>A Chip That Can Transfer Data Using Laser Light
>
> By JOHN MARKOFF
> Published: September 18, 2006
>
> SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 - Researchers plan to announce on Monday that they
> have created a silicon-based chip that can produce laser beams. The
> advance
> will make it possible to use laser light rather than wires to send data
> between chips, removing the most significant bottleneck in computer
> design.
>
> The development is a result of research at Intel, the world's largest chip
> maker, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Commercializing
> the
> new technology may not happen before the end of the decade, but the
> prospect
> of being able to place hundreds or thousands of data-carrying light beams
> on
> standard industry chips is certain to shake up both the communications and
> computer industries.
>
> Lasers are already used to transmit high volumes of computer data over
> longer distances - for example, between offices, cities and across
> oceans -
> using fiber optic cables. But in computer chips, data moves at great speed
> over the wires inside, then slows to a snail's pace when it is sent
> chip-to-chip inside a computer.
>
> With the barrier removed, computer designers will be able to rethink
> computers, packing chips more densely both in home systems and in giant
> data
> centers. Moreover, the laser-silicon chips - composed of a spider's web of
> laser light in addition to metal wires - portend a vastly more powerful
> and
> less expensive national computing infrastructure. For a few dollars
> apiece,
> such chips could transmit data at 100 times the speed of laser-based
> communications equipment, called optical transceivers, that typically cost
> several thousand dollars.
>
> Currently fiber optic networks are used to transmit data to individual
> neighborhoods in cities where the data is then distributed by slower
> conventional wire-based communications gear. The laser chips will make it
> possible to send avalanches of data to and from individual homes at far
> less
> cost.
>
> They could also give rise to a new class of supercomputers that could
> share
> data internally at speeds not possible today.
>
> The breakthrough was achieved by bonding a layer of light-emitting indium
> phosphide onto the surface of a standard silicon chip etched with special
> channels that act as light-wave guides. The resulting sandwich has the
> potential to create on a computer chip hundreds and possibly thousands of
> tiny, bright lasers that can be switched on and off billions of times a
> second.
>
> "This is a field that has just begun exploding in the past 18 months,"
> said
> Eli Yablonovitch, a physicist at the University of California, Los
> Angeles,
> a leading researcher in the field. "There is going to be a lot more
> optical
> communications in computing than people have thought."
>
> Indeed, the results of the development work, which will be reported in a
> coming issue of Optics Express, an international journal, indicate that a
> high-stakes race is under way worldwide. While the researchers at Intel
> and
> Santa Barbara are betting on indium phosphide, Japanese scientists in a
> related effort are pursuing a different material, the chemical element
> erbium.
>
> Although commercial chips with built-in lasers are years away, Luxtera, a
> company in Carlsbad, Calif., is already selling test chips that
> incorporate
> most optical components directly into silicon and then inject laser light
> from a separate source.
>
> The Intel-Santa Barbara work proves that it is possible to make complete
> photonic devices using standard chip-making machinery, although not
> entirely
> out of silicon. "There has always been this final hurdle," said Mario
> Paniccia, director of the Photonics Technology Lab at Intel. "We have now
> come up with a solution that optimizes both sides."
>
> In the past it has proved impossible to couple standard silicon with the
> exotic materials that emit light when electrically charged. But the
> university team supplied a low-temperature bonding technique that does not
> melt the silicon circuitry. The approach uses an electrically charged
> oxygen
> gas to create a layer of oxide just 25 atoms thick on each material. When
> heated and pressed together, the oxide layer fuses the two materials into
> a
> single chip that conducts information both through wires and on beams of
> reflected light.
>
> "Photonics has been a low-volume cottage industry," said John E. Bowers,
> director of the Multidisciplinary Optical Switching Technology Center at
> the
> University of California, Santa Barbara. "Everything will change and laser
> communications will be everywhere, including fiber to the home."
>
> Photonics industry experts briefed on the technique said that it would
> almost certainly pave the way for commercialization of the long-sought
> convergence of silicon chips and optical lasers. "Before, there was more
> hype than substance," said Alan Huang, a former Bell Laboratories
> researcher
> who is a pioneer in the field and is now chief technology officer of the
> Terabit Corporation, a photonics start-up company in Menlo Park, Calif.
> "Now
> I believe this will lead to future applications in optoelectronics
>
> If I don't have one of these by next week, I will die......
>
> ;o)
>
>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
------=_NextPart_000_001C_01C6DB52.C321A0C0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
DJ,
Have you had a chance to hear it yet?
Tom
"DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message =
news:450c945b@linux...
I installed it and the demo immediately timed out.
"Aaron Allen" <know-spam@not_here.dude> wrote in message
news:450c91a4$1@linux...
> http://www.uaudio.com/email/UAD-1_v44.html
>
> AA
>
> "DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message
> news:450c4079@linux...
> > I'm Ghosting my OS on my Cubase machine right now and then I'm =
gonna
have
> > to
> > install this.........dammit!!!
> >
> >
> > "Rich Lamanna" <richard.lamanna@verizon.net> wrote in message
> > news:450bda66$1@linux...
> >> If you aren't already aware of this, UA just released version =
4.4.0
> > software
> >> for their famous 33609 compressor. Looks pretty neat.
> >>
> >>
> >
=
http://webmail.pas.earthlink.net/wam/msg.jsp?msgid=3D14804&a mp;folder=3DEarth=
Link+Se
> > rvices.spamBlocker.Suspect+Email&x=3D1578451007
> >>
> >> Rich
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>
I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?
http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html
------=_NextPart_000_001C_01C6DB52.C321A0C0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=3DGENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>DJ,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Have you had a chance to hear it =
yet?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Tom</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE=20
style=3D"PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; =
BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV>"DJ" <<A=20
=
href=3D"mailto:animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net">animix_spam-this-ahole=
_@animas.net</A>>=20
wrote in message <A=20
href=3D"news:450c945b@linux">news:450c945b@linux</A>...</DIV>I =
installed it and=20
the demo immediately timed out.<BR><BR>"Aaron Allen" <<A=20
=
href=3D"mailto:know-spam@not_here.dude">know-spam@not_here.dude</A>> =
wrote in=20
message<BR><A=20
href=3D"news:450c91a4$1@linux">news:450c91a4$1@linux</A>...<BR>> <A =
=
href=3D"http://www.uaudio.com/email/UAD-1_v44.html">http://www.uaudio.
|
|
|
|
| Re: Oh g-wd . . [message #71344 is a reply to message #71315] |
Wed, 16 August 2006 23:40 |
DC
Messages: 722
Registered: July 2005
|
Senior Member |
|
|
com=
/email/UAD-1_v44.html</A><BR>><BR>>=20
AA<BR>><BR>> "DJ" <<A=20
=
href=3D"mailto:animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net">animix_spam-this-ahole=
_@animas.net</A>>=20
wrote in message<BR>> <A=20
href=3D"news:450c4079@linux">news:450c4079@linux</A>...<BR>> > =
I'm=20
Ghosting my OS on my Cubase machine right now and then I'm=20
gonna<BR>have<BR>> > to<BR>> > install=20
this.........dammit!!!<BR>> ><BR>> ><BR>> > "Rich =
Lamanna"=20
<<A=20
=
href=3D"mailto:richard.lamanna@verizon.net">richard.lamanna@verizon.net</=
A>>=20
wrote in message<BR>> > <A=20
href=3D"news:450bda66$1@linux">news:450bda66$1@linux</A>...<BR>> =
>> If=20
you aren't already aware of this, UA just released version =
4.4.0<BR>> >=20
software<BR>> >> for their famous 33609 compressor. Looks =
pretty=20
neat.<BR>> >><BR>> >><BR>> ><BR><A=20
=
href=3D" http://webmail.pas.earthlink.net/wam/msg.jsp?msgid=3D14804&a mp;amp;fo=
lder=3DEarthLink+Se">http://webmail.pas.earthlink.net/wam/msg.jsp?msgid=3D=
14804&folder=3DEarthLink+Se</A><BR>>=20
> rvices.spamBlocker.Suspect+Email&x=3D1578451007<BR>>=20
>><BR>> >> Rich<BR>> >><BR>> =
>><BR>>=20
><BR>> ><BR>><BR>><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT size=3D2><BR><BR>I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, =
and=20
you?<BR><A=20
href=3D"http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html">http://www.polesoft.com/refer=
..html</A> </FONT></DIV></BODY ></HTML>
------=_NextPart_000_001C_01C6DB52.C321A0C0--If the price was reasonable I think our little community would pony up the
necessary funds...I know I would
Don
"DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message
news:450f1a7f@linux...
> Do we have any money to pay him? I don't think he's gonna work for free.
>
> ;oP
>
> "Aaron Allen" <know-spam@not_here.dude> wrote in message
> news:450e9b9e@linux...
>> Find out if dude is interested in writing a windows Vista and OS-x driver
> :)
>>
>> AA
>>
>>
>> "DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message
>> news:450e471d$1@linux...
>> > He wrote the software program that MRI machines are using these days.
>> > Very
>> > interesting guy. I'm mastering a project for his wife. He was pretty
>> > interested in the Paris program. His wife is pretty well known in the
>> > LA
>> > music community and he digs this stuff. I may ask him if he could write
> a
>> > delay compensation applet for Paris. He really got a chuckle out of
>> > Frankencomp.......said he's built a few similar monstrosities himself.
>> > They
>> > will be back over here tomorrow night.
>> >
>> > ;o)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>Tony,
I think you did pretty well, actually.
"Which God to follow" can be a sincere question, as in:
"it makes sense to me that God would have a plan for our lives and
wants the best for us, and I need to know who God really is"
or it can be rhetoric, from a clear atheist position, as in:
"well, there's a god over here and there's a god over there, and
another one in Boston, and how are we to know which god is the
right one?"
and the person really believes in no God whatsover.
The difference is important because if one believes in a creator, it is
reasonable to assume that the creator is interested in him as well.
This, at least is the Christian position, and the Bible and certainly the
life of Christ centers on the issue of "who cares about humans
anyway?"
Well, John 3:16 answers that doesn't it, and while secularist
reasoning can be shown to be utterly self-referential and even
irrational, in the end spiritual things are spiritually discerned and if
someone simply wishes to dispute, they may do so, forever.
So, as a Christian, believing that Jesus came to save me, and that
the Bible narrative, while not perfect in the details, nonetheless
contains His story. I would say on that basis, that the God of the
Bible is the right one, and I would say that the muslims are mistaken
and do not serve God at all. "By their fruits you will know them"
*However* there is the obvious case of the righteous Muslim,
Buddhist, Hindu etc. I do believe that the imprint of our creation
exists in all of us, granting even the atheist a conscience, despite
their basic antipathy to absolutes. Beyond that, I also believe that
God turns no one away, so there is the mystery of those who
seek God in their own culture and their own religion, clearly *finding* Him!
We are responsible for what we know, not what the other guy knows.
That doesn't make faiths all equal or the same.
BTW, the case can be made that ANY theistic belief is superior
to atheism and neo-darwinism, simply because it gives at least some
basis for universal morality.
What about the righteous atheist? Well, there are a few of these,
and I think some of them have been called by God to do good despite their
ideology and that thing they follow that they call
"conscience" is in reality the Holy Spirit and they may be saved
on the basis of their reaction to that voice of God. I also think that
denominations generally thoroughly *suck* (good theological
term eh?) and have driven away many righteous people who live
without religion in a righteous manner. I do believe they are all
called to join the rest of us at some point, but I will not pretend
to judge them, nor Hindus, Muslims etc on when that is.
Brain Welch (Head) from Korn became a Christian a while back, and
evidently has a new tune called "Religion Must Die" and I think he
has a point. Take a look at his new site. I like the music.
http://www.headtochrist.com/
Of course, whatever emerges from the death of religion, even if it
is the most dynamic Christian community since the 1st century,
will be called 'religion' by the secularists who so dominate our
culture, so it's semantics to some extent.
DC
"Tony Benson" <tony@standinghampton.com> wrote:
>Hi Don,
>
>I'm not in the same league with you to debate theology. I'll try to state
my
>feelings in the most coherent way, but it will be, at best, clumsy. The
>problem, from my point of view, with relying on "God" to dictate morality
is
>that every different religion believes their God is the one true God (or
>God's in some cases). Evidently, fundamentalist Islam's God says it's
>completely moral and beyond that, an Islamic's duty to kill infidels. So,
>who's God's morals should all of mankind follow. You say yours. They say
>theirs. I can only follow what I believe to be true in my own heart. I feel
>that I can still have faith in something beyond myself (God) and faith that
>for what ever reason, I have the ability to sense right from wrong. Perhaps
>the one true God gave us that ability.? Obviously people do say "who cares"
>to the accepted social moral standards all the time. If not, we wouldn't
>have any murder, theft, rape, etc. But by and large, I think the majority
of
>people know in their hearts the difference between right and wrong,
>regardless of what God they follow or weather they believe in God at all.
>
>Tony
>
>
>"DC" <dc@spammersinkabul.com> wrote in message news:450f0ab7$1@linux...
>>
>> "Tony Benson" <tony@standinghampton.com> wrote:
>>>Hi Dedric,
>>>
>>>Don't take my comments as an indication that I have no "faith" in a higher
>>
>>>power, but couldn't our ability to feel empathy be one possible reason
>>>that
>>
>>>the majority of people might have similar morals. I don't think an atheist
>>
>>>knows murder is wrong just because god said "thou shalt not kill". I think
>>
>>>the golden rule has a lot to do with it. Over time, we have learned as
>>>empathetic beings what is ultimately right and wrong. At least in the
very
>>
>>>broad sense. Now, how we got to the point where we feel such a vast number
>>
>>>of emotions and are able to apply them to how we treat others is something
>>
>>>else to ponder.
>>>
>>>Tony
>>
>>
>> The problem, of course, is that without a belief in moral
>> absolutes, reflecting realites designed into us by our creator,
>> anyone can say "who cares" to any social construct, contract,
>> set of mutual obligations, or anthroplogicial observation that
>> morals do indeed exist.
>>
>> In fact, one is invited to do so by an ideology that places
>> humankind, not God at the center of existence. When the self
>> is the center of the universe, one easily decides that someone
>> else's morals and ideas of a social contract are an illusion.
>> Worse, ideas about morals may even put them at a competitive
>> disadvantage compared to the person who has none. (welcome
>> to the music biz!)
>>
>> This result is likely given that set of assumptions, but it
>> becomes inevitable one you go down the road of the neo-darwinists
>> and socio-biologists who assert than humanity is simply a
>> vehicle for furthering our "selfish genes" rather than a created
>> being made to live in community with God and each other.
>>
>> The theist (and certainly the Christian) must always live in
>> submission to a greater power, never being the center of
>> existence, and deriving morality from a higher power than the
>> self. Humility is our greatest calling, one I fail at
>> regularly, but still, it is there.
>>
>> Without God, all is permitted.
>>
>> DC
>>
>> "It appears that the great sacred-cow of our culture, the self,
>> is not automatically interesting".
>>
>> -Robert Hughes
>>
>>
>
>Anyone, anyone? Beuller?
So who would you consider to be equal to or better than Kissinger in today's
world?Sorry – I can’t help myself.
I assume we all think that schools in the Middle East where children are
indoctrinated with anti-western ideas mixed with big dose of religious zeal
and combined with preaching the virtues of martyrdom are a bad thing… right?
Gene"gene Lennon" <glennon@NOSP.com> wrote:
>
>
>Sorry – I can’t help myself.
>
>
>I assume we all think that schools in the Middle East where children are
>indoctrinated with anti-western ideas mixed with big dose of religious zeal
>and combined with preaching the virtues of martyrdom are a bad thing… right?
>
>Gene
>
Right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co1_9lR9EpMDunno, but jump into your next point cuz he's had a lot to say lately.
"John" <no@no.com> wrote in message news:450f2399$1@linux...
>
> Anyone, anyone? Beuller?
>
> So who would you consider to be equal to or better than Kissinger in
> today's
> world?Deej, good lord amighty, if we go around blowing away every perceived threat
to us, we're gonna be dropping a lot of bombs on a lot of people. Where
should we start? Seriously? How many countries shall we bomb back to the
stone age in an attempt to rid the world of potential threats? How many
civil wars shall we create and get bogged down in to appease our more
war-like citizens? Cuz last time I checked, there were easily half 3 or 4
dangerous states posing a much greater economic and/or military threat to us
and our allies than Iraq recently did.
And speaking of Iraq, how the hell are we ever gonna spare the man-power to
fight other countries while we are so severely over-taxed in Iraq? Is it any
accident that Iran has been so loud and obnoxious recently? They know we are
compromised tactically. They laugh loud and long every day at our current
difficulties.
Any of you guys ever bone up on the last 60 years or so of Arabic/Persian
history? We've been playing with fire for a long time now, as far as I can
tell. Seems to me that part of the current problem is that a lot of
skeletons in our national closet are coming to light. I certainly don't
condone the radical Islamic fringe that seems to have it in for us, but
folks in the Mideast in general have a few good reasons to profoundly resent
our beloved U.S.A. Would I like to erase the earth of all religious and
political fundamentalism? Hell yes. I'd also like us to get really, really,
serious about not meddling in the affairs of other people in a decades-long
effort to influence the price of oil.
Jimmy
"DJ" <animix_spam-this-ahole_@animas.net> wrote in message
news:450f1b1d@linux...
> I don't see us overreacting Jamie. However, if there is indication of some
> sort of major threat, do we run and tell the NY times or do we blow the
> threat away before it pays us a visit?
>
>
> "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450f0
|
|
|
|
| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71347 is a reply to message #71320] |
Thu, 17 August 2006 03:11 |
rick
Messages: 1976
Registered: February 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
hristian churches
who,
> > >>>> feeling similarly insecure, deny the solid and ever-mounting
evidence
> > > of
> > >>>> evolution, responding with dogma in psuedo-scientific clothing, and
> who
> > >>>> seek to water down scientific education in the USA.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> The fear of reason extends to power hungry industries who pay big
> bucks
> > >>>> to spread denial about global warming for short term gain. Who push
> to
> > >>>> control oil in the middle east with force. With our guns blazing,
our
> > >>>> soldiers dying and our debt rising astronomically. And who
sometimes
> > >>>> hide behind Christianity to do so.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> The fear of reason extends to some neoconservatives who find ways
to
> > >>>> pretend that everyone is aligning against Christianity. And in
> > > spreading
> > >>>> this fear attempt to incite Christians to vote to keep them in
power.
> > >>>> And in so pandering, help to continue the denial of reason and the
> > > focus
> > >>>> on the use of force.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Not that I'll change your mind, DC, so go ahead and declare
victory.
> > > ;^)
> > >>>> Have a great week!
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Cheers,
> > >>>> -Jamie
> > >>>> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> DC wrote:
> > >>>>> I thought this was worth reading if any of you are interested.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Have a great Monday!
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> ----------------------------------------
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> The Unholy Alliance Rolls Over the Pope
> > >>>>> By Andrew Walden
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> In what has suddenly been made into a highly controversial
> > >>>>> speech, the day after September 11, at Bavaria's University of
> > >>>>> Regensberg, Pope Benedict describes Christian belief in a God
> > >>>>> whose words and acts are bound by reason, truth and the law of
> > >>>>> non-contradiction. Benedict contrasts this with Islamic belief
> > >>>>> in a God not bound by anything-including his own words. Benedict
> > >>>>> further contrasts Christian belief with that of secular humanists
> > >>>>> who see reason as being completely unbound of God.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> In response, both Islamists and secularists have demanded the
> > >>>>> Pope apologize. Benedict's speech is a work of enlightened
> > >>>>> genius. He has clearly laid out the differences between
> > >>>>> Christian culture and Islamic culture and the basis of the clash
> > >>>>> of civilizations we now experience as the War on Terror. His
> > >>>>> analysis also explains the underlying cause of the alliance
> > >>>>> between the western Left and the Islamofascist Right.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Islamist reaction focuses on one sentence in the speech.
> > >>>>> Reaching back to 1391, Benedict quotes Byzantine Emperor Manuel
> > >>>>> II: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there
> > >>>>> you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
> > >>>>> to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Four days later, according to AP: "Pakistan's legislature
> > >>>>> unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite
> > >>>>> cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party
> > >>>>> likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of
> > >>>>> reviving the mentality of the Crusades.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> "Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict's remarks on Islam and
> > >>>>> jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that
> > >>>>> many fear could burst into violent protests like those that
> > >>>>> followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad."
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Reuters quoted other sources expressing fears for the Pope's
> > >>>>> safety and even fear of an attack on Vatican City.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> The Islamist reaction proves Manuel II's 600-year-old point. The
> > >>>>> reaction is not one of anger but a calculated attempt to force
> > >>>>> the Pope to parrot the PC line on Islam. Since Islam need not be
> > >>>>> internally consistent and it is not bound by reason, it's only
> > >>>>> objective can be to assert the power of a God who is so
> > >>>>> transcendent that He is not bound by anything. If man is created
> > >>>>> in God's image then by extension Islamic man is not bound by
> > >>>>> anything. (This explains the predilection on the part of some
> > >>>>> Muslims to lie.) Islamists are not responding to any 'offense' to
> > >>>>> their non-existent morality. They are asserting the only
> > >>>>> 'morality' they have-the will to power.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> "Will to Power" is a key element of Nietzsche 's philosophy-hence
> > >>>>> the root of the term, Islamofascist. Moreover the Western "Left'
> > >>>>> is today guided far more by Nietzsche existentialist thought than
> > >>>>> by Marxist thought-hence the alliance between the Western "Left"
> > >>>>> and the Islamofascist 'Right.'
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Reuters quotes an Indian Muslim leader doing precisely what
> > >>>>> Manuel II said they would: "Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric
> > >>>>> of New Delhi's historic Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque,
> > >>>>> extolled Muslims to 'respond in a manner which forces the Pope to
> > >>>>> apologize.'" Note they intend to use "force" not reason.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Reuters quotes an unnamed diplomat pointing out the Pope was,
> > >>>>> "calling a spade a spade".
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> The secularist mouthpiece, New York Times,editorializes, "Pope
> > >>>>> Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims.." This is false. The Pope's
> > >>>>> description of the Islamic God as being unbound by reason is not
> > >>>>> an insult, it is an Islamic article of faith. What Muslims and
> > >>>>> secularists fear is the Pope's decision to choose to enter
> > >>>>> dialogue asserting his belief in Christianity. How dare he not
> > >>>>> "apologize" for being a Christian? That is the so-called
> > >>>>> "insult."
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> One might "reasonably" ask when will Muslims "apologize" for
> > >>>>> being Muslim? But they are not bound by reason to the point is
> > >>>>> lost on them.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Amazingly the Times continues: "Muslim leaders the world over
> > >>>>> have demanded apologies. For many Muslims, holy war - jihad - is
> > >>>>> a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence." In saying
> > >>>>> this, the Times implicitly recognizes the Islamists are waging a
> > >>>>> propaganda jihad against the Pope and by extension against
> > >>>>> Christianity-and they explicitly endorse and join this jihad.
> > >>>>> The Times is saying to Islamists, 'we can join your 'spiritual'
> > >>>>> jihad, but not your violent jihad.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> The Times editors are living in a fool's paradise. The
> > >>>>> "spiritual" non-violent jihad of propaganda is merely the flip
> > >>>>> side of the violent jihad. Nowhere is that more clear than in
> > >>>>> the Islamist reaction to the Pope.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> With the Pope scheduled to visit Turkey in November the Islamists
> > >>>>> are rejecting any apology from Vatican spokespersons and demand
> > >>>>> to hear from the Pope himself. This would place raging mobs of
> > >>>>> semi-literate Islamist thugs in the position of forcing the
> > >>>>> leader of Christendom to bow before them.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> In this demand for submission they are joined by the secularist
> > >>>>> mouthpiece. In its September 16 edition the Times editorializes:
> > >>>>> "He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology." The
> > >>>>> secularists too seek the Pope's submission. Like the Islamists,
> > >>>>> the secularists are driven only by their will to power. While
> > >>>>> the Islamists represent their demented version of
> > >>>>> God--unrestrained by reason, the secularists represent their
> > >>>>> demented version of reason--unrestrained by God. They are united
> > >>>>> by their self-worshipping world view.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> It should be noted that the carefully staged "anger' from the
> > >>>>> Islamic world does not condemn Benedict's characterization of
> > >>>>> Islam as a religion where God's "will is not bound up with any of
> > >>>>> our categories, even that of rationality...(The Islamic) God is
> > >>>>> not bound even by his own word.." This is not seen as an insult.
> > >>>>> Islam embraces this description. In offering this description of
> > >>>>> Islam, Benedict refers to the views of leading modern French
> > >>>>> Islamist R. Arnaldez as discussed in the writings of Professor
> > >>>>> Theodore Khoury of Munster.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Likewise the secularists express no dismay at the pope's
> > >>>>> characterization of a secularist as: "(A) subject (who) then
> > >>>>> decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers
> > >>>>> tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective 'conscience'
> > >>>>> becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical."
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Benedict asserts that without reason, or without God, there can
> > >>>>> be no modern system of morality. He explains, "In this
> > >>>>> way.ethics and religion lose their power to create a community
> > >>>>> and become (instead) a completely personal matter."
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Both Islamist and secularist seek to break God and reason apart.
> > >>>>> Each claims superiority over the Christian West. They believe
> > >>>>> absolute moral license makes them powerful. As globalization
> > >>>>> carries the Western tradition of reason throughout the world,
> > >>>>> both are in decline.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Where the force of reason is defeated, Islamist and secularist
> > >>>>> will meet in combat, just as Hitler's fascists broke their pact
> > >>>>> with the Soviet Union, invading in June, 1941 after the collapse
> > >>>>> of the allied forces on the western front.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> What the Islamists and the New York Times both fear is having to
> > >>>>> reply to the Pope's key point, borrowed from the Byzantine
> > >>>>> Emperor: "'Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos (word or
> > >>>>> reason) is contrary to the nature of God,'.. It is to this great
> > >>>>> logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in
> &g
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| Re: Oh gawd . . [message #71351 is a reply to message #71347] |
Thu, 17 August 2006 06:05 |
TCB
Messages: 1261
Registered: July 2007
|
Senior Member |
|
|
<parisnews@hydrorecords.com> wrote:
>>Dunno, but jump into your next point cuz he's had a lot to say lately.
>>
>>"John" <no@no.com> wrote in message news:450f2399$1@linux...
>>>
>>> Anyone, anyone? Beuller?
>>>
>>> So who would you consider to be equal to or better than Kissinger in
>>> today's
>>> world?
>>
>>
>Hey Chris,
Good to hear from you!
Thanks for the info.
Take care,
MR
"Chris Ludwig" <chrisl@adkproaudio.com> wrote in message
news:450f2d33@linux...
> HI Mike,
>
>
> Mike R. wrote:
> > Hope it's ok to post this question here.
> > A friend of mine is going to buy a new Mac laptop. She is running
Cubase SE
> > on her current
>
> No Universal Binary yet for Cubase not till 4.0 comes out so I don't
> think it will work if it is a Intel based one.
>
> 'pute and wants a bigger faster, but portable, machine.
>
>
>
> I'm
> > most interested in your thoughts regarding both an audio card and what
sort
> > of external audio drive she could/should use.
>
> On a budget the Presonus Firebox is a great unit. If she want quality
> Mic-Pres and AD/DA, etc then the RME Fireface 400.
> Also the Mackie Spike or Onyx 400f might be a good option sense they
> come with the Tracktion software already.
>
> If she is only recording 2 tracks or so then there is no need for an
> external drive. It would only be needed fore backs ups but the projects
> would more than likely be small enough to easily fit on DVDRW.
> Using an internal 80 or 100 gig drive on the PC would easily allow for
> 32 tracks of 24/48 at 3 ms buffer on the RME Fireface 400. If you raise
> the buffer then 48 tracks should be no problem.
>
>
> She generally won't be
> > recording more than two tracks at a time, four absolute max. I don't
think
> > she'd be mixing more than eight tracks at any one time either. I will
> > certainly be surfing myself to see what's out there, but I'd take you
folk's
> > recommendations, even over say... Mr. Spock's --although he did some
pretty
> > nifty stuff analyzing those whale sounds.
> > Thank you, thank you.
> > MR
> >
> >
>
> The current laptops well use the new Core 2 Duo CPUs.
>
http://www.adkproaudio.com/systems/saved_system.cfm?systemid =103&saved_id=8935
>
> :)
>
> Chris
>
>
> --
> Chris Ludwig
>
> ADK Pro Audio
> (859) 635-5762
> www.adkproaudio.com
> chrisl@adkproaudio.comI think this one is just as much fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCODIhAXbQM&NR
......and these are pretty cool, dont'cha think?
http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/
Yep....there are whack jobs everywhere out there. I wonder how much of this
stuff is backlash from the broadcasts we've been seeing for years of the
automations produced by the madrasas
"gene Lennon" <glennon@NOSP.com> wrote in message news:450f256f$1@linux...
>
> "gene Lennon" <glennon@NOSP.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Sorry - I can't help myself.
> >
> >
> >I assume we all think that schools in the Middle East where children are
> >indoctrinated with anti-western ideas mixed with big dose of religious
zeal
> >and combined with preaching the virtues of martyrdom are a bad thing.
right?
> >
> >Gene
> >
>
> Right.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co1_9lR9EpMI wasn't that impressed with Kissinger. However I heard our former
Colorado Senator and current head of the UN Foundation talk this spring,
and was impressed with what he had to say. Tim Wirth. Actively involved.
Or perhaps another former Colorado Senator, former president of the
University of Northern Colorado, now president of the University of
Colorado, Hank Brown. He has done some local diplomacy in this state and
seems to know how to calm people down.
Cheers,
-Jamie
http://www.JamieKrutz.com
John wrote:
> Anyone, anyone? Beuller?
>
> So who would you consider to be equal to or better than Kissinger in today's
> world?I think I answered yur question as much as I can by stat8ing that a diplomat
cannot do anything unless there is willingness to participate in a
meaningful and sincere dialog......so keeping in mind that a negotiator must
have credibility and those for whom he is negotiating must have some sort of
track record of credibility, I ask you.......who do you think would be a
credible negotiator for Iran, North Korea, Syria?
"John" <no@no.com> wrote in message news:450f310e$1@linux...
>
> What? It's a simple question. Who is a real diplomat in today's world?
>
>
> "justcron" <parisnews@hydrorecords.com> wrote:
> >Dunno, but jump into your next point cuz he's had a lot to say lately.
> >
> >"John" <no@no.com> wrote in message news:450f2399$1@linux...
> >>
> >> Anyone, anyone? Beuller?
> >>
> >> So who would you consider to be equal to or better than Kissinger in
> >> today's
> >> world?
> >
> >
>Neither, actually. And what we ought to do would depend on the nature of
the threat.
We might want to start with recommendations published in 1999, well
before the 9/11 attack.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_on_Terroris m
We can disagree about whether our current policy is one of overreacting
or not. We can probably really disagree about the newly minted
preemptive attack policy. :^)
Cheers,
-Jamie
http://www.JamieKrutz.com
DJ wrote:
> I don't see us overreacting Jamie. However, if there is indication of some
> sort of major threat, do we run and tell the NY times or do we blow the
> threat away before it pays us a visit?
>
>
> "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450f0b12@linux...
>> Of course they came out with a blustery ultimatum. That's not news, it's
>> an old pattern. It works for them to sit back and suggest that others do
>> something via terror-grams such as this. If it makes you afraid as well,
>> my guess is they would see that as a bonus.
>>
>> By goading the USA into overreacting it helps them grow, raise money and
>> convince others to actually see us as evil and act accordingly. It
>> works, we keep falling for it. OTOH, for those here with a declared
>> interest in emptying the US treasury, it's likewise beneficial to have
>> the specter of an enemy out there. Fear sells.
>>
>> We have yet to actually declare war on anyone in this whole mess. How do
>> you declare war on a tactic?
>>
>> Forced conversion and head taxes would go over like a lead balloon in
>> the USA. Not gonna happen. We're far more sectarian than, say, Iraq.
>>
>> Responsible leadership is needed in the world to calm extremist
>> tendencies on all sides and help rational people who are trying to get
>> by in worsening times. At the same time we need to be, and are
>> attempting to be, vigilant against any self righteous group with
>> fantasies of violence in the USA.
>>
>> Any rush to some sort of "holy war" is irrational. There is nothing holy
>> about war.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -Jamie
>> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>>
>>
>>
>> DJ wrote:
>>> I haven't seen us react with irrationality.............yet. Al Quaeda
> just
>>> came out with an ultimatim stating that it's full on war now and the
> west
>>> will be destroyed. The only way to save ourselves is to convert to
> Islam. So
>>> where to you draw the line between irrationality and self defense?
>>>
>>>
>>> "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message news:450ee7ef@linux...
>>>> Let's keep from reacting to irrationality with irrationality of our
> own.
>>>> There's a lot of fear mongering. Chicken Little is back.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> -Jamie
>>>> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> DJ wrote:
>>>>> It doesn't matter at all whether this was the Pope. The bottom line is
>>> that
>>>>> it is rationality as opposed to irrationality.
>>>>>
>>>>> "Jamie K" <Meta@Dimensional.com> wrote in message
> news:450ec970@linux...
>>>>>> The Catholic church doesn't speak for Christianity. Certainly not for
>>>>>> Lutherans, and for good reason.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A Pope criticizing other religions (even other Christian sects, even
>>>>>> other Catholics) is nothing new. Certainly much harsher things have
>>> been
>>>>>> said about Islam by some (not all) extreme fundamentalist Christians.
>>>>>> And certainly much harsher things have been said by certain extremist
>>>>>> Islamists about Christianity. The more extremist of both camps seem
> to
>>>>>> be spoiling to relive the crusades. With some of the more power
> hungry
>>>>>> ready to endanger civilization by attempting to incite religious wars
>>>>>> for their own questionable ends.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's a vast generalization to say the "the left" or "secularists" or
>>>>>> even "Christians" are demanding an apology from the Pope. I think a
>>>>>> whole lot of people think the Pope can say whatever he wants. It
>>> doesn't
>>>>>> matter to most non-Catholics in the USA and in reality, Papal
>>>>>> declarations are ignored by a fair number of Catholics here, too.
>>>>>> Obviously some Moslems are upset in some places, but how deep does
> that
>>>>>> go? When black churches were burning in the USA, it would have been
> an
>>>>>> exaggeration to blame everyone in the USA for that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The fear of reason extends to the Catholic church which only very
>>>>>> recently apologized for the oppression of Galileo. The church hung on
>>>>>> tenaciously to the dogma of an earth-centered view of the universe
>>> while
>>>>>> denying the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, which describes the
>>>>>> actual way the solar system works.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It also extends to a few Christian sects who, feeling similarly
>>>>>> insecure, tenaciously cling to the notion that the earth is only
> about
>>>>>> 6,000 years old, by virtue of the biblical interpretations and clever
>>>>>> (at the time) calculations of an Irish Bishop several centuries ago,
>>> and
>>>>>> in the face of solid current scientific evidence to the contrary.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The fear of reason extends to some (not all) Christian churches who,
>>>>>> feeling similarly insecure, deny the solid and ever-mounting evidence
>>> of
>>>>>> evolution, responding with dogma in psuedo-scientific clothing, and
> who
>>>>>> seek to water down scientific education in the USA.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The fear of reason extends to power hungry industries who pay big
> bucks
>>>>>> to spread denial about global warming for short term gain. Who push
> to
>>>>>> control oil in the middle east with force. With our guns blazing, our
>>>>>> soldiers dying and our debt rising astronomically. And who sometimes
>>>>>> hide behind Christianity to do so.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The fear of reason extends to some neoconservatives who find ways to
>>>>>> pretend that everyone is aligning against Christianity. And in
>>> spreading
>>>>>> this fear attempt to incite Christians to vote to keep them in power.
>>>>>> And in so pandering, help to continue the denial of reason and the
>>> focus
>>>>>> on the use of force.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not that I'll change your mind, DC, so go ahead and declare victory.
>>> ;^)
>>>>>> Have a great week!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> -Jamie
>>>>>> http://www.JamieKrutz.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> DC wrote:
>>>>>>> I thought this was worth reading if any of you are interested.
>>>>>>
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