NBVegita

The point I'm arguing is not opinion. Its that people think that marriage started with churches...IT DID NOT. Marriage and church = seperate en!@#$%^&*ies. Marriage was a civil union used ages before it was committed in religious ceremonies to colaborate land and posessions. Or to join clans ect. It did not become an active part of religion until the 17th century and even then it was only common place for the nobles to have ceremonies in churches. They happened before then, but they were not widely practiced. Most of the early marriages were not even monogomous. Plain and simple church has nothing to do with marriage other than if you want to have them hold the ceremony. For no other reason does it exist in marriage besides as much as your faith wants it to. If you chose to get married without ever talking to a religious figure, or stepping onto religious grounds, its just as solid of a marriage by LAW as if you did. That is my big arguement. Church should have nothing to do with it. So if states are banning it due to what they believe is wrong religiously, then that violates seperation of church and state, and is thus illegal.

OUch.

oh and on a side note, I'm glad to see something being done with the zone. Even small things like this are better than sitting on your !@#$%^&* just talking about ideas that could be good. Even baby steps are better than standing still.

Back when your ideas were rational delic I was trying to help you on staff. I was helping you to learn that flaming the sysops was no way to get your ideas across. Right in the middle of me working on getting you your own arena, and just as I made you coordinator of sbl ( season 3 4 or 5, I don't remember, loooooong time ago) you quit ss. I do believe it was for personal reasons, just as why I quit, but don't act like noone ever did anything for you in the zone.

Shay was always a nub...just like meks will always be

lol that was fun to look back and see all those old names

Well defended

But those same feelings of dejection can come from many things. As you say new clothes, the house you own, or don't, the race of your parents, if your parents are fat, if they don't look perfect, if they aren't perfect. So are we to say that you may only reproduce if you exist in a perfect society? That you must be rich, have a beautiful house, be wonderfully attractive, and so must your mate? People will always get harr!@#$%^&*ed about something, its in the insecurity of other people to do so. I'm not saying that homosexual parents would do any better, I'm just saying with our current rates, and looking at the youth of today, they can't do any worse than we heterosexuals have been doing over the past couple decades. I mean !@#$%^&*, there is a reason that the leading cause of death among teenagers, at least in the united states is suicide. And as stated many many times, no matter how wrong anyone believes it is on a religious level, there is a strict cons!@#$%^&*utional separation of church and state. The state grants marriage, not the church. So if using religion as the backbone of your arguement on why they should not be wed, then you are basically saying that those people do not deserve cons!@#$%^&*utional rights. You are saying that they are less citizens of the united states, mind you I'm only using the united states as an example, and do not deserve their full cons!@#$%^&*utional rights. I want to know where in the !@#$%^&* do you have the right to deny anyone, man, woman, or child the rights that our forefathers fought for, and are by the rights of a United states citizen, granted to them? Just because their lifestyles don't coincide with yours? If you are a united states citizen, and an atheist, should you be denied marriage too? Where does it end?

The way I look at it is that statistically 50% of males under the age of 45, and 52% of women under the age of 45 end their first marriage in divorce. Now that just helps to create one !@#$%^&* of a family unit eh? Honestly in todays day and age, the family unit is almost extinct. Me and my fiance have already planned that when we have children, not for a good amount of time, she will stop working so that she can take care of our kids. We don't want what the majority of society does, and just poof send em off the baby sitter and let a stranger raise your children. I mean is it better to have two parents, both male or female, who will love and nurture and take care of a child, or is it better to have two heterosexual parents who are constantly arguing, break up, and put you in the middle? I know that isn't every family, but it is a lot of families. I'm sure you all either have been through it, or know a decent amount of people who have.

notice how you can make a rectangle with triangles.

Arguing religion is like trying to teach a re!@#$%^&*ed kid the hokey pokey. The problem as stated is there is no right or wrong, specially with religion. On a religious level you believe those terrorist who flew planes into the world trade center are in "!@#$%^&*" right now. But according to their beliefs, for their god, they were doing a devine duty, and will be well rewarded in the after life. And I have a more formal knowledge of the religion than you might think. And when I was referring to events that have happened, I was referring to events concerning christianity as a whole. Catholic, protestant, episcople, they're all under the broad scope of christianity. And as for the bible, the only facts they are uncovering is that the people and or places in the bible may have existed, it does not do anything to credit the validity of the bible. And I didn't mean to come across that any church, or sects are evil, just remember the old quotation: "don't cast stones if you live in a gl!@#$%^&* house" Oh and holy ego batman. I respect quick a lot for being able to admit that his religion isn't perfect. You'd be surprised, or maybe not, to find how many people think just like thunder.

Kinda hard to do one of these online...

Who says moral standards have to be set by religion? First off lear I wasn't refering to your use of priest, it was spy's I was refering to. As for the bible being a supreme truth, honestly truth is just an interpretation of fact. Being there are no facts in the bible, kinda hard for it to be the truth eh? Which is why faith is blind. I have an issue with faith because sitting on your knees in front of your bed won't get you that job you want, or pay your bills, and it definately won't make you any smarter. Working hard will do that for you. My personal belief is that having such faith in a diety that may or may not exist is a crutch that people who do not have the strength to believe in themselves use. You may call me rude and wrong for that, but as I have seen nothing to contradict that statement, I will stick with it. I mean the christian church has been corrupt for so many years, and yet people blindly follow it. I mean how many child molesters and lechers do you need to find in a religion before you start to question the men who are giving you "gods guidance"? And just look at the crusades, the church sold amnesty if you'd send your son and yourself to go die in some war that never needed to happen. All because the church was greedy. But don't worry as long as you played along with the church, no matter how bad your sin was, it would all be forgotten and forgiven. And if you didn't want to do that, as long as your pockets were deep enough, that would work too. If you need to have faith in something, have faith in yourself. Believing in yourself will get you a lot further in life than giving $5 to your church every sunday will.

Right there proves your narrow mindedness. A priest is nothing more than an authoritive figure who can perform religious rights. Just because you are a prist does not automatically make you christian. And I can only use personally collected data, but as of now I don't belive I've met more than a handful of people who even attempt to live their lives by the bible, and the majority of the people I know, I cannot attest for those I don't, are christian. Religion nowadays just isn't quite like it was centuries ago, so I don't feel that it is a fair arguement to bring up the bible, being as gerbils said, its more of a guidline than rules. And I'd like to meet the man who's say 21 and has willingly said no to sexual activity. I know they're around, but I'd just like to meet one. Maybe put him in a museum somewhere...

And this is yet another narrow minded opinion. You say god like there is one universal god that all people worship. News flash: The entire world does not believe in christianity. There are a lot of religions much older than christianity, with different beliefs and opinions. And as for spreading the word of christianity, cmon just rewrite the bible again. Its only been re-written over a dozen times by a dozen different people. And yes the bible says man shall not lay with man, but !@#$%^&* look at our lives today. Just think of how much you would have to change your life to follow the bible meticulously. I mean if sodomizers and lechers can spread the word of the christian god, why should a homosexual be any less inept at it?

Well actually now that you mention it, just a few examples, back in say the days of ancient rome, it was socially exceptable for men to partake in sexual intercourse with each other. It was a bond of love and friendship. Not marriage, but it still happened. I mean even Alexander the Great was known to have many male lovers along with his female lovers. Same sex interaction has been happening for years. As for marriage, well I just plain don't know lol.

And just because you are a republican does not mean you automatically support bush or what he says. Everyone is too hung up on parties nowadays

Amen. um I mean agreed

Marriage is not decided by a church, it is decided by a state. Yes religious figures have the ability to join two people in matrimony, but honesty I could go out and by 6 months from now be certified to marry people, and never step foot into a church to do it. The only step you need to accomplish marriage, at least for New York, which is the state I'm from, is to go to the government and get a marriage licence. Which only dictates that the two of you are of age and consent to get married. Then you can just find anyone who can marry you, some government locations even have people on site who are certified to do so, and poof you are married. Its only in the mind of the people that marriage and church go together. Plain and simple, marriage is a legal matter. If you get divorced, you don't run to the church now do you? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marriage This is just a way that the definition between church and state gets blured. Yes according to your religion you may have to be married by a priest, rabbi, ect. But that doesn't mean that its the law. And I don't know how versed any of you are, but a rabbi can be a religious figure, usually is, but to become a rabbi, you need only be jewish, and completey versed in jewish laws and triditions.

Yeah point proven candy I'm not saying that we shouldn't be more careful, I just feel that they've gone to such extreme measures and still left themselves so open. I mean honesty, how hard is it to say lift up a laptop kb, or pop open an ipod? The way I look at it now is its like they built the great wall of china, and every 100 meters they left simple wooden doors. With a small bolt lock. made of pine. and 2 cm thick.

Apache, how is it ignorant to state that its much easier to smuggle liqud, or putty explosive material in your anal cavity, or any body cavity actually, just the anal cavity would be the easiet to retrieve on board, and you wouldn't have to worry about that stomach acid thing, than to detonate anything else? I mean for heavens sake, you could implant enough C4 into your pen so that when you click it from a window seat you blow out the side of the plane, are we to ban you from bringing pens on board too? You could wire your shoes, if they had thick enough soles with C4, so you could do the same, should we have to check our shoes at the door? And C4 is just a broad example, there are many household and other types of bombs that would be just as easy to conceal. I'm all for safety, but when you get to the point where its not even worth taking an airplane anymore, I think thats a step too far. I mean as a business man in the world today, you are set back whole days worth of productivity because you cannot do any work from your pda or laptop because of restrictions. In essence The terroist are succeding in the fact that they are disrupting our everyday lives, and now this is going to effect our economy. Remember than when a person blows up a plane, or a couple, its not about the 200 people they kill.

The problem is you are right. Any device could theoretically contain a bomb with an easy detonator. That is why I belive that now all international flights ban you bringing basically anything on board. You are allowed to bring do!@#$%^&*ents pertaining to work, but not a laptop, you are allowed to bring in a baby bottle with formula, but they must test that it is just formula, and you may bring on prescription medication(non liquid) as long as the name on the prescription matches your passport. Everything else is prohibited. I personally feel that this is god !@#$%^&* rediculous. Honestly if a terroist really wanted to blow something up that bad, take that liquid bomb they made, fill a condom with it, and implant it in your anal cavity. Go to the bathroom, and boom you've got your bomb. They still cannot do cavity searches, so for now that would take a lot less work than trying to rig your ipod to make the plane blow.

I concur with drake, sorta. This is war they are in. Its not like beating someone up on a playground. War inevitabally causes civilian casualties. As pointed out about the end of WWII, if we had not dropped the two bombs, who knows how much longer that war would have lasted? Not saying that it was right or wrong, but at the time, it was the best solution. By doing that the U.S. caused an enourmous amount of civilian casualties, but by ending the war it saved thousands of lives. Or at least bringing about the end phase of the war. Isreal killed civilians. But the balance of the lives they saved by destroying those missiles works out. I mean look at it this way, some country has missiles, and your hometown, where all of your family and friends live, is the target. Are you going to be careful of what you bomb to protect "enemy civilians" whom may or may not be simply civilians, or are you going to do your best to save your own people? Consider the fact that hezbollah would not think twice about sacrificing the citizens of Israel to further their cause. Any countries main concern is always they're own citizens. They're lives should be placed against the lives of other countries civilians, specially if that country is at war with you.

!@#$%^&* even I marvel at that ignorance.

I just don't see a 2v2 multiship league as a good course of action at least for the time being. The problem is that there is no easy fix to this problem. If you want something multiship, it has to be very simple. Say something like a Multi ship elim? That might get enough interest. The problem when something becomes multiship is noone stays happy. You have your javvers and aggressive players that will just get furious when you have ships like wb's and terrs just plain running all the time. And don't try to tell me that you can't say for the past 3 years 98% of wb's have just been runners. There are obvoius exceptions, and I don't mean to offend anyone who actually knows how to use the ship. Basically what that rant was getting at is that a multiship league with our settings is difficult as any other zone with multi ship settings is based on a more svs set than our base/team sets we run on. Enterprise and I had worked out a fairly decent ship set for MSbl what now 3 years back, and I think that league would have been a good solid league if it had been pushed better on the staff end. The problem is we do not have the population to support msbl at the current time. As far as I can see that is the best option for a multi ship league, and that option is out of the question until we get a larger population. In my firm opinion any league besides either a duel tourney they've been running almost like a league, or say an elim league, we don't have a solid enough pop base to keep any of those leagues alive. And having a minor, say elim, league survive is much better than having a major, say msbl, league fail. And as there just wasn't enough interest back in June for 2v2 I just don't see it working now.