SeVeR

God may respect those who take the logical standpoint based on the evidence he has provided. Afterall, if God built the universe then we are respecting his creation by investigating it and discovering it's truths. Science has allowed us to see much of the universe, so why not approach the question of God's existence in the same logical way? Simply, if God wanted us to know he exists then he would give us proof of his existence. If he wanted us to have "faith" then why would he create a vast universe for us to investigate in ways where faith is not a requirement. Thus I am an agnostic, and if there is a God, then i expect he will respect my decision above those who had faith. If anyone comes to believe in God out of a fear of !@#$%^&*, then they are cowards, and any God that rewards them for that decision is not a God worth my time.

The markets are up alot this week. Big deals are being proposed such as Microsoft's purchase of Yahoo. There are two bidders for the stricken UK bank "Northern Rock". The oil companies have posted massive profits as expected but so have firms such as HMV and British Airways. Lots of other good news is piping through this week, interest rates are going down... A recession? This is all a load of hullabaloo. People are going crazy and they shouldn't be. It sure is nice to be liberal and to blame all this on America's economic policy; but what has changed in the last 50 years?

yea... boggles the mind

Ooh, i hope i can connect after you fix it.

I don't see the pedophile argument, as male pedophiles can still use the male locker rooms without any problem. I do disagree with this bill if it allows male cross-dressers into female locker rooms. If all it takes is to put on a dress, then it's not hard to see how the new law would be abused. In the case of a male who has had gender-re!@#$%^&*ignment surgery, they obviously think of themselves of female, so i see no problem.

This has become a topic for people to stroke their egos, send it to the trash.

WTF ever happened to walking home. Anyway, it's fun getting !@#$%^&*-faced at least once. For one, you'll know what sort of !@#$%^&*-faced drunk you are. You'll get to experience having your vision impaired. You'll experience a different frame of mind, and know whether or not you like it. Have you ever gotten bored from sitting in the pub for 6 hours? Beer makes it better. Sometimes i don't drink beer at all. I don't see it as addictive, but if you don't want to drink it, then don't, and be straight about it. Usually the "peer-pressure" is due to acting awkward about not doing something, just be honest.

I've seen it, and thought it was a really awful movie. The ending just made me want to throw up. It's like "here are the relevent plot-ties we need to add to the end of this film, so sit through it and try to feel emotional about this very touching ending". The only advertisements for this movie involved showing the armored bears, and i can see why. What else was marginally interesting? It may be a pigeon hole, but that last part sounds like an opinion of yours. It seems you don't understand what science is. If science wasn't incorrect all of the time, then it wouldn't be science. Science is about proving it's own theories wrong in order to come to more probable conclusions. So the "even though" bit in your statement should really be an "and".... And quite frankly, it becomes a rather nice pigeon hole to be in. Personally, i'm an agnostic.

America supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, even though Iraq had started the war and were using WMDs. America even blocked a UN statement to condemn Iraq's usage of WMDs. A CIA led coup in 1953 deposed the elected Iranian prime-minister, replacing him with a vicious dictator. When the people finally rebelled, America cut off all ties with the new people's government. America destroyed democracy in Iran, put a dictator in charge, and then isolated Iran once the people got back in control. Imagine what the people of Iran think of America?

This has to be the first sign of the apocalypse.

Wasn't Huckabee a Baptist Minister? Those Baptists are frigging nuts.

Fact is Iraq started the war. You specifically said that Iran invaded Iraq, which is bs. The only reason Iran got onto the offensive (after Saddam's initial !@#$%^&*ualt) is because the Iranians were better tacticians. Iran could have conquered Iraq but instead decided to make peace in 1988. Iraq had used chemical weapons throughout the war, and when the UN Security Council was asked to condemn the actions, guess which country blocked such action? The U.S.A. As for the hostage crisis, it's not a Khomeni action because he didn't order the action himself. And thats precisely what's wrong with America. The U.S. destroyed democracy in Iran by staging a CIA-led coup to take down the elected prime-minister in 1953. They put a ruthless dictator in charge, who they naturally support. Then when the people rebel against the Shah, they get turned away by the U.S. to the extent where the U.S. supports Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war even though Iraq started the war AND used chemical weapons. America is the ultimate hypocrite. Anti-democracy, pro-fascist, pro-WMD, pro-war.

Any encyclopedia will tell you that Saddam invaded Iran and not the other way round! I'm quite shocked at your lack of historical knowledge... Wrong... again. Students took over the US Emb!@#$%^&*y, and probably without the knowledge of Khomenei. Eventually Khomenei endorsed the takeover, but it certainly wasn't his idea. The facts are simple. 1. In 1953 the elected Prime Minister of Iran decided to nationalise the oil industry. 2. America and Britain were outraged and decided to depose the the Prime Minister (Mossadegh), to replace him with the brutal dictator you speak off. 3. The CIA encited riots from their base in the US Emb!@#$%^&*y. 300 people were killed and the Prime Minister was imprisoned. 4. The new U.S. supported Shah created a secret police and oppressed his people. 5. Eventually the people rebelled and the Iranian Revolution began. 6. Students took over the U.S. emb!@#$%^&*y, calling their hostages "CIA spies" (hmm i wonder why..) 7. The U.S. eventually made a deal with the hostage takers, a deal that the U.S. didn't honour. You can find this information on any encyclopedia. When you are completely wrong, it isn't idiotic to state the facts and correct your warped view of world history. Where on Earth do you get your information from? I really do hope your post is a joke.

You're pinning alot of your hopes on the accuracy of story-tellers and word-of-mouth. The majority view is the "Gospel of Matthew" was not written by the disciple Matthew (wiki). The date of A.D. helps to confirm this. It very likely was not a first-hand account. To get a minority view, which is favourably Christian, i would guess you did your research with a Christian source? Luke, also around A.D., makes it unlikely that he was a witness to Jesus. Few people trust the gospel of John as being a reliable account of the life of Jesus, and it's dated around 90-100 A.D. Mark's gospel, 65-70 A.D., from which Matthew and Luke plagiarised, appears to be the only original account. You'd still have a hard time convincing anyone it was a first-hand account. It was written in Rome by a friend of a disciple of Jesus, and even then, it was common practice in the ancient world to enhance the importance of written works by attributing them to famous people. Mark may not have been the author at all. There are even theories to suggest the author was re-writing the work of Homer. 300 years means little in Alexanders case, it would at least be as accurate as the gospels. However, the gospels go very deep into the things that Jesus said and did. That kind of detail is hard to corroborate, and without reading Alexander's biography, any comparison would be futile at this stage.

Alexander the Great affected the lives of millions, he had statues made of him, and the accounts of his life and military exploits would have been so vast that it would have been easy to write his bio. Jesus has no surviving proof of his existence, and no other ancient accounts of his life. Writing about him 40-60 years after his death must rely on stories passed down through at least one generation. Probably none of the authors had a first hand account of Jesus' life, yet they write about him in such a way, giving detailed descriptions of his exploits. Where did they get these stories? From Christians telling far-out tales around camp-fires? I'm not sure i trust what you've said about story-tellers not exagerating. Even so, many people would have believed he was the son of God without Jesus ever saying he was. So the story-tellers could have been accurate in their beliefs, but still wrong about Jesus. For someone who probably had a large following, it is entirely believable to think many of those followers believed him to be devine. There is also plenty of evidence to suggest the later two/three gospels plagiarised the first. That reminds me, what of the other gospels? From what i've heard they don't describe Jesus as devine at all. The four gospels in the Bible were selected from a great many others. I do believe Jesus existed, i don't believe he was devine. The religions of the Middle East today tend to agree (Islam, Judaism). There are problems with Tacitus' account: Tacitus calls Pontius Pilot a "procurator" instead of a "prefect" (Tacitus' father was a procurator and he clearly knew the difference). This is the same mistake made in Josephus' work, and the works may have been editted in the same way by the same person. Also Tacitus calls the followers "Christians" when it is unlikely that they had yet chosen this name, also suggesting later edits. It can certainly be called into question, although i believe it is probably correct for the most part. However, Tacitus does not describe "Christus" as devine. passages that refer to Christians existing around that time are not in dispute. From what i've read, only one paragraph in Josephus' work concerns Jesus, and it's likely that the whole paragraph was added in. Although i'd like to see what you have.

I don't think there are many girls who actually put the word "girl" in their name. It's usually a guy who wants other guys to think he's a girl - thus putting "girl" in the username makes that seem obvious. Pictures are also an attempt to legitimise that iden!@#$%^&*y, as are the smiley faces with hearts and so on. Making short posts minimises the effort whilst getting it all seen. At best it's a teen emo f@g with long hair and a wavering sexual iden!@#$%^&*y, at worst its a malicious pedophile.

Where did you do your research? How many of the gospels were written during the life of Jesus? How many edits were made throughout history by people like Constantine and St Paul. Are there any references to Jesus outside the Bible? Do you accept that Josephus's account is faked with sentences implanted into the text?

Are you serious?

Firstly, we should never change our culture to accommodate someone elses. Immigrants and non-Christians have chosen to live in this culture, and as a result they should expect to see us celebrating Christmas (and calling it Christmas) once a year. If they don't like that, they can kindly sit back and not participate. Indeed, they should be given leave of school to attend their own kind of celebrations if they wish too. I don't see any problems, other than the people who get offended. They are obviously very insecure if they are threatened by celebrations that aren't relevent to them. Either they feel that society is trying to convert them to Christianity, or they are bitter that everyone else is celebrating something that they are not. Either way they are incredibly insecure. Whenever i see Christian symbolism at Christmas i don't like it either, but that's because i see is as a symbol of ignorance. It's hard to be threatened by it... rather i'm disapointed. Then again, not all symbolism at Christmas is Christian, so i'm quite happy to enjoy it.

Like Astro said, you love the things you own. So when the Bible says to love things as well as rule over them, then i don't see anything incompatible there. If the Bible says to rule over your wife, and that the wife should submit to the husband, then God is sexist for as long as you believe the Bible is God's word. Besides, why would a Bible verse tell you not to love your wife? Of course the Bible tells you that a husband and wife should love eachother. The Bible also tells you to love your flock of sheep...

Ok then, God is sexist by our current standards, and so are you if you agree with him. It wasn't even "applicable" back then; how can sexism ever be applicable? It can be accepted by a culture but it is never appropriate.

Not everyone has your levels of motivation NBV. It just so happens that motivation doesn't matter when you're rich. Even if the rich and poor have the same levels of motivation, then there will still be way more poor in the gutters because they don't have anything to fall back on.

NBV, I can't believe you still don't understand what "per 100,000" means. This accounts for population differences. It's why it's called a rate. Even though you've selected old statistics from different years (suspicious), your figures still give: 4.34/0.18 = 24. That's close to my 2004 answer of 27. I'm sure there are also differences between what gets included in gun deaths and firearm homicides. Example: If a school class in the UK has 25 people, and in that class 5 kids get A's, then you'd say the rate of A-students is 0.2. If a school class in USA has 50 people, and in that class 20 kids get A's, then you'd say the rate of A-students is 0.4. Now if the class in the UK were to double it's population to match that of the USA class, then more kids would get A's, but we wouldn't expect the rate to change. Rather we'd have 10 kids with A's with a rate that remains 0.2. Rate's are independent of population size. There may be minor influences, but you certainly do not multiply the ratio of the two populations to get a new rate in th eway you've done.