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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 05/27/2009 : 10:27:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
California and other states that allow "ballot initiatives" that modify the state's constitution need to drop them.
Direct democracy is a massively stupid idea.
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How true that is... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2009 : 15:07:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Originally posted by Dude
California and other states that allow "ballot initiatives" that modify the state's constitution need to drop them.
Direct democracy is a massively stupid idea.
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How true that is...
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I agree, but that's easier said than done. In California, it would take a ballot initiative to get rid of ballot initiatives.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2009 : 15:13:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Robb
If the Bible did not teach we deserved hell, then I would not advocate Christianity since we would not need Jesus. |
Which concisely explains why gentle Christianity added the heretical concept of Hell to the Jewish faith.
As you indicate, fear makes people remain Christians. Disbelief in the Devil, not disbelief in Jesus, is Christianity's greatest enemy.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2009 : 18:40:34 [Permalink]
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I know the thread moved on, but I rediscovered an interesting quote from the man himself:
Matthew 22:30 :
For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. |
It is not about marriage in our lifetime, but it does further illustrates, in my opinion, the feelings the early Christians had about sex. It was not that it was good, at best, it was a need that the strongest members of the church could overcome to focus on spreading the message. For others, it should remain confined within the realm of marriage. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2009 : 03:18:59 [Permalink]
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Mark Moford's thoughts on Prop 8.
"Here's a fun thing to do to calm your frazzled, saddened nerves in the wake of the CA Supreme Court's very unfortunate, but also merely annoying and karmically fleeting Proposition 8 decision:
Head on down to your local high school -- hell, make it a junior high or even an elementary -- and take yourself an informal survey. Ask the various wary, bepimpled youth of Generation Tweet what they think about those scary gay people getting married.
Ask them, in your most panicky, alarmist, Mormonified voice: Aren't they horrified at the very idea? Aren't they shocked at the very thought of two people in love having their union officially recognized and validated by the state?
Don't they know the musty ol' Bible mutters some barely coherent, mistranslated silliness about it in a single word or two written 1,500 years ago in a long dead language by acidic church elders with powermad political agendas and violently repressed libidos who nevertheless wish to instruct us all how to live and love and screw?
Please note the response. Please observe how the kids merely look at you as though you're more than a little bit deranged and prehistoric, so out of touch you might as well be Dick Cheney talking up the diesel-powered rectal thermometers he so loved back in World War I.
Watch carefully as they sigh and roll their eyes, then whip out their Nokias to text their friends about how this creepy elder just tried to convince them that the harmless, yawningly commonplace homosexuality currently saturating the popular culture all around them, from fashion to Facebook, movies to "American Idol," is not only wrong, but so wrong that the law should ban it forever because... well, no one really seems to know exactly why.
Did you see it? That big, sighing shrug of what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you, combined with lots of who-the-hell-cares? Because that's the reaction to note most of all.
Here is what it tells you: Gay marriage is a foregone conclusion. It's a done deal. It's just a matter of time. For the next generation in particular, equal rights for gays is not even a question or a serious issue, much less a sinful hysterical conundrum that can only be answered by terrified Mormons and confused old people and inane referendums funded by same. It's just obvious, inevitable, a given."
In short, it's all evolution. As the policies of dying dinosaurs fade away, newer policies will advance to the fore. Ultimately, Prop 8 will fail; it's only a matter of time and not a very long time at that.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2009 : 07:02:11 [Permalink]
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Mab wrote: | Abusive pedophiles don't deserve it. |
I'm not sure I agre with you here, Marf... |
Eternal torment is proper and divine justice for people who have at least two disorders? I say two because pedophilia is one type of disorder which many individuals (thankfully) never act on but who instead suffer often in silence and secrecy their whole life. For those who act on it without remorse there is an additional sort of pathology going on.
I'm not saying that abusive pedophiles don't need to be dealt with aggressively. For the sake of the victims, and the fact that once it has gone that far it is a pattern of behavior which often does not respond well to treatment, they obviously do need to be permanently removed from free society. In addition to dealing with those who already are abusive pedophiles, it makes much sense to try to understand better what conditions lead to such horrific behavior and try to prevent those conditions from producing more such people in the future.
There are some rare people who are born without an ability to empathize, or men born with an extra Y chromosome which makes them more prone to violence and tends to lower their intelligence. There are whole areas of psychological study which look at the psychopathology of criminals, many of whom commit acts which average people would consider monstrous. Those people don't deserve hell either. People can't help what they become because of the combination of genes and how their pscychology is molded by personal experiences. In other words, they, too are victims, but of chance and circumstance (unless you believe in an intelligent creator-God, in which case it's his fault.)
If we're really going to be both rational and compassionate beings, we shouldn't let the pain and anger that we feel when such people commit atrocious acts of harm on us and those we love to guide our concept of justice. Granted, that's easy to say from an emotionally neutral position. I personally might toss out all my principles and reason on this issue if my kid was abused. But I would hope not, because then I would just become more like a monster myself. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 05/28/2009 07:03:26 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2009 : 07:08:17 [Permalink]
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| Robb, on the whole saved by grace thing - what do you mean by grace? Most Christians I've met who use that line express it to mean those who believe, literally, that the Jesus of the Gospels is God and the Messiah. In other words, people who were raised a different religion and tend to either believe that religion instead because that is simply what is normal in their culture are going to hell for not believing. Apparently the racial and ethnic demographics of heaven (and hell for that matter) will be quite skewed from what they are here on earth. Sorry, but that God sounds an awful lot like human beings to me. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 05/28/2009 07:08:37 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2009 : 07:37:23 [Permalink]
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| OT: Martha I really like that Miss Chiangmai print, your best Pinky relief yet IMO. I particularly love the slogan, which reminds me of my friends juxtaposed artworks about angels/Jesus... If I wasnt completely broke I might buy one. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2009 : 09:01:29 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Mark Moford's thoughts on Prop 8.
(Snippity snip!)
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That's very true, and very nicely written to boot.
Thanks for the linky. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Same-sex marriage thoughts
