all_shall_perish

I think it is reasonable and (hopefully) virtuous that people are skeptical about most things. Especially those things concerning ideas and maybe even entities that are out of our physical and intellectual reach (at least as of current). I can't say it better than Emerson does about skepticism so I'll just quote him: “If there is a wish for immortality, and no evidence, why not say just that? If there are conflicting evidences, why not state them? If there is not ground for a candid thinker to make up his mind, yea or nay,- why not suspend the judgment? ...In short, since true fortitude of understanding consists "in not letting what we know be embarrassed by what we do not know," we ought to secure those advantages which we can command, and not risk them by clutching after the airy and unattainable... It stands in [the skeptic's] mind that our life in this world is not of quite so easy interpretation as churches and schoolbooks say. He does not wish to take ground against these benevolences, to play the part of devil's attorney, and blazon every doubt and sneer that darkens the sun for him. But he says, There are doubts.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson (Montaigne; or, the Skeptic)

"You say you have faith in science, but science is commonly proved wrong. Science is also many times 'blind faith'. There are several things in science which cannot be proven, but are known to be true. Therefore...you are the same as any person that believes in a God." The problem here is a very deep and silly misunderstanding of the word and idea "science". Science is not an institution or a conglomerate of anti-religious lab coats. Science is simply a methodology. As Wikipedia more eloquently puts it: "In its more restricted contemporary sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, and to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research." There is nothing wrong with science, only scientists (practitioners of the scientific method). Also, perhaps "...but science is commonly proved wrong" is a poor choice of words. Science is always tentative and expects a better answer will come along eventually. This expectation is part of the beauty of the system itself. The fact that scientific theories are sometimes abandoned for something better should not detract from the validity of the scientific method. Science, good science that is, is never what you call "blind faith." Blind faith is a belief in something regardless of actuality. Because the scientific method is grounded in reproducible evidence, science itself cannot be blind, only those interpreting the information it has yielded. "There are several things in science which cannot be proven, but are known to be true." There is no such thing as something existing within or without of science. Researchers have either applied the scientific method to solve a certain problem or they haven't. According to the scientific method something cannot be known to be true without evidence, and even then we can only assert its truth value so far. Even to simply say that the grass is green is only true to a matter of degrees. This dispute seems to be more concerned with the literal meaning of the term "religion" which is incredibly ambiguous (like with most parts of language). The deeper question which should be probed is this: "is there a practical and significant consequence if we are to prove Atheists are indeed religious?" Does it change the fact that they deny or, in most cases, just are not concerned with the supernatural? "Those that are athiest always have one definite lining, and that is that they think they can describe the proof of no God through science." This is just simply not true. You've corralled all atheists into a single bland category. Atheism is simply the lack or absence of belief. No more. No less. It doesn't matter for what reasons they lack their beliefs in the supernatural. Science is also not their "church" as your describe. They may not believe in high powers for many reasons. Atheism does not require a blind devotion to the fruits of scientific thought. If someone is an atheist, all it tells you is what they DO NOT believe. It says nothing about what they do believe: science or otherwise. "Truth be told, however, there is no true Athiest..as in order for them to be 100 percent athiest, they would have to prove absolutely without a shadow of a doubt that there is no God. If they cant, they are agnostic." This, also, is a severe abuse of logic. To be agnostic is to simply be unsure or to say "I don't have enough information yet (or maybe ever) to make a definitive statement about such topics." Communists don't have to present 100% definitive proofs of the soundness of their political ideology for us to believe they are communists. It simply means they hold political, social, and/or economic beliefs in common with communist ideology. By your same logic no Christian could claim they were truly a Christian as they are equally unable to definitively present a proof of God's existence. This does not mean they hold what is said in the bible to be any less true. As far as my personal understanding and usage of the term "religion" goes, I would say calling atheism or agnosticism religions is sort of like calling bald a hair color.

also to be considered: cable tv providers typically offer high speed internet at cheaper prices if you subscribe to their tv service as well

i think you'll still end up getting billed for it but at the time you need it you'll receive treatment.

Depends on whether or not you feel government should be in charge of providing medical care for its citizens. I personally feel that people should only be en!@#$%^&*led to emergency treatment, regardless of their ability to pay for the services and that's exactly what the United States offers. My biggest issue with universal health care is that I have to support irresponsible fools because they don't know how to control themselves: Some piece of !@#$%^&* walks down the street and stabs/shoots/!@#$%^&*aults a person for some unjustifiable reason and guess who picks up the tab.

I'm still up in the air about my candidate of choice. However, I watched McCain about two nights ago essentially list all of the countries he wants to bomb for whatever bogus reason and he has not even made it out of the primaries yet.

"A terminally ill child getting better appears to be unexplainable: therefore God" I was briefly considering unicorns but after further thought I'm going to say it was leprechauns. Unfortunately, all of these conclusions are equally valid.

At some point social constructs are important because otherwise human interaction and communication would be tedious and useless. At some point we all have to agree the gr!@#$%^&* is green and the sky is blue, regardless of what the reality of the matter is. As long as we can agree on that fact, we can then make statements and arguments about the gr!@#$%^&* and the sky and interact on that basis more readily. The practicality of agreeing on which fairy tale to believe or which invisible man lives in the sky is not nearly as important because our ability to agree or disagree on such topics does not change the fact that it doesn't effect us.

I don't think the motivation behind agnosticism is really from a lack of evidence but rather that the current evidence which exists isn't convincing enough to believe either way definitively. So essentially, agnostics simply aren't convinced. Believing in something due to a lack of evidence is reserved for the theists and atheists.

Although I don't classify myself as an atheist, I'll address your question from the atheist's standpoint which is just as fair an argument from my point of view. The argument of choosing a religion "to be better safe than sorry" was addressed by Blaise Pascal who essentially said that if your belief in god ends up being right then you have an infinite gain whereas if you didn't believe in god and god turned out to exist, then you'd have an infinite loss. See Pascal's Wager for a clearer explanation. So by Pascal's logic, it's better to believe in god and be wrong than it is to not believe in god and be wrong. My main problem with that notion is that you're believing in something purely out of fear which makes those gods out to be rather tyrannical if you ask me. Also, if the god(s) you believe in is omnipotent and all knowing and what not then you'd think he/she/it would be able to call your bluff for simply playing the "better safe than sorry" card. There is a very very very very remote chance that you've somehow managed to believe in a god that actually exists and have done all the things necessary to avoid an eternal !@#$%^&*ation. But you must recognize that there is the exact same probability that your belief may be upsetting a god you didn't think existed which will probably land you in eternal !@#$%^&*ation too. This is sort of a spinoff of the atheist wager http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/atheistswager.html which points out some flaws in the !@#$%^&*umptions Pascal made in his wager.

that's the one that you want, just register for the free serial.

Surprisingly, you can put other sorts of data on dvd's and cd's outside of other dvd's or cd's. I don't really agree with big record labels and big film distributors, but the plain and simple fact is copying/downloading of music and what not is stealing. Now, the whole idea of government en!@#$%^&*ies monitoring what you do on your personal computer sounds like a gigantic invasion of privacy and i am 100% not OK with that even if it is utilized to stop criminals.

Right, and the United States hasn't been in a "war" since WWII. Just because you change the name of it doesn't mean it's not the same thing. Although I follow your point, the influence of motifs and common themes throughout movies and other forms of media has a very very small affect on people's views. They both were pretty gross but as for no one wanting to see them; the Da Vinci Code was the most watched movie in 2006. I am also aware that catholics are no longer an archaic witch burning group of people, however... http://www.catholicleague.org/catalyst.php...r&read=2322 That link leads to a pamphlet against Pullmans "atheist stealth campaign" and also has some nut job in a movie yelling about how Pullman is a terrible man teaching atheism to kids (oh my!) In reality that's just one big section of Catholic propaganda and quite frankly, !@#$%^&*. This is in the Catholic League's "About Us" section: Great, the Catholic League is out to prevent slander and hatred against the Catholic church and only the Catholic church in the spirit of a do!@#$%^&*ent that says: That means, the government feels you have a right to practice whatever religion (or no religion for that matter) you so please. Somehow the Catholic League finds the ability to say this do!@#$%^&*ent was the inspiration behind their existence, meanwhile, they post do!@#$%^&*ents that contain nothing less than bigotry against atheists. So what's the big deal with being an atheist? The Catholic League says "Oh my goodness they are teaching atheism!" so my response is "and?" Yay for hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness!

I think there's a lot of truth in what you say. If you write a book or produce a movie that targets a particular class or group as some form of villain, that group is going to be upset. I also agree that the boycott in practice is nearly useless as most of their boycotts are. The last time the Catholic League protested against a movie was when the Da Vinci Code opened and that ended up being the most popular movie in 2006. I believe what I'm trying to get at is that I find extreme irony in the idea that the church is saying "don't buy these books because they are heresy." Meanwhile, the books are saying "don't let forms of authority tell you what to do, figure the truth out on your own." Leave it to the Catholic League to blindly epitomize this sort of thing I suppose.

I'm quite certain that he was influenced by old English literature; but he was also influenced by his God. This is so obvious that even Wikipedia makes reference to one of his quotes concerning the subject of religion in his writing: When I make reference to the church I mean the governing body of any organized religion. I'm not out to get any particular religion, only all of them. I'm not implying that anyone should be denied their right to free speech. If the head of a church wants to stand up and say "I think these movies and books are evil and bad for children" then by all means let him do that. But they aren't just stopping at that, they are passing out propaganda and TELLING those followers that those books and movies are evil. These church followers look up to those leaders and will follow what they are being told without second guessing. These church leaders are using their position and power as leverage to brainwash the very people they lead. I was thinking something more along the lines of Paradise Lost with a twist since that really seems to be more spot on than your random Star Trek tangent.

I'm not so sure that the media themselves actually boycott anything outside of not talking about something. I think the media simply reports on organizations that are claiming to be boycotting. I'm also not sure what you're trying to achieve here. If this is in reference to previous discussion about Tolkien: Tolkien was blatantly, and admittedly, heavily influenced by Christianity. Despite his popularity, Tolkien is scorned by many authors of his type for his over use of religious topics and allegory. Indeed boycotting is a form of speech as it is a form of protest. I don't think I can really agree that boycotting something implies that the item or act being boycotted is "crap" as you put it. Boycotting is typically viewed as an extreme and that is to be performed, typically, by extremist. And, typically, extremist have no idea what they are talking about. Boycotting isn't censorship in the larger majority of instances, however in the instance of religion it is censorship. Boycotting does achieve a point, that much cannot be denied, but that point doesn't change the fact that they are telling their followers, and everyone else, that the books shouldn't be read due to their content. As a generalization, when the churches do something of this sort, the followers of those churches will heedlessly obey them, and sometimes out of fear. Considering the trilogy was not a character study, I wouldn't expect anymore than "mostly flat characters." And if you over generalize it's very easy to label just about any sort of literature as "trite" seeing as the author was most likely influenced by previous works. Imagine that. Although it may not be entirely unique, it is still a unique and interesting take on something old. Fortunately for us, topics are not banned from being written about ever again after their original conception. Give me an audience that labels a piece of literature as non-novel and I'll tell you that audience lacks the ability to notice the important differences in the story.

I also just completed reading the trilogy and was very impressed with all three books. Now that I've read through the whole thing I think the critics are really missing the point. The books, if they preach anything at all, are really driving towards the idea of free thought and free will. Now, that's not to say that these books don't contain some harsh criticisms themselves pertaining to religion, but it's mostly against the sort of churches that would advise against say...you reading a set of books because they viewed them to be heresy. As some previous members have stated, I am well aware that all Christians/Catholics, or anyone else claiming to be part of some form of organized religion, do not fit the psycho critic oh-my-god-this-is-evil-burn-it nut jobs description. It was also said previously that children are more than willing to absorb knowledge without second thought at young ages merely because an adult, or in this case a book, said so. The target audience of the book appears to be teenagers/young adults so I think that whole "propaganda" factor of the books loses its potency when you actually look at the age group that should be reading the books. All in all I don't think the movie did that much justice towards the first book (as usual with the whole book to movie deal though). The books however are worth reading and I don't think religious folks will find them to be outright offensive as people are making it all out to be.

the machine i work on the majority of the time is a an old dell xps from 2001 that i've added some after-market crap too: Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz w/HT 512 KB L2 cache (Mobo supports 800 MHz front side bus) 2 GB (512 x 4) RAM DDR-400 1x 120 GB Western Digital; 7200 RPM 2 MB cache (SATA 150) 1x 74 GB Western Digital; 10000 RPM 8 MB cache (SATA 150) ATI 9600 256 MB through AGP 8x 2x 19in LCD; '01 and '07 Dell Logitech 3000 Media Keyboard Logitech MX Revolution laser mouse CISC sucks, powerpc is where it was at until intel came in and gobbled up the market.

independent2win

Although I'm currently doing research on the origins of books like the bible, I'm not well versed by any means. From my basic understanding, it appears that no credible historians from the time period even mentioned Jesus in their writings. Meanwhile, these historians were taking time to do!@#$%^&*ent what would seem like less significant events in comparison. My biggest issue with the bible is the fact that it appears none of the many authors have any credibility outside of Christianity or the bible itself.

i'm not sure if it's state law or not, but every company i've ever worked for full time will offer you optional health insurance but at a very hefty cost which doesn't make it worth it.

Because they lack human compassion and would rather end a person's life over something petty than drop the "tough" image? Sounds reasonable and useful for when they actually grow up and have to take responsibility for their actions. The sob story about poverty in America is touching, but it's also a gigantic cop-out. You can utilize the social status and lack of money as a scapegoat for someone's actions, or you could just treat them like everyone else and say they lack the ability to make the right decisions and better themselves regardless of the cir!@#$%^&*stances. I know plenty of families who never had much money, both through acquaintance and close friendship, and they managed just fine. All of them were law abiding, upstanding citizens and would strive not to be another scab on society's hind quarters. The point is this: if you let your environment control who you are, then you're probably going to screw up at some point. It's not difficult to make good decisions that also fall inside the boundaries of this country's laws. Money has nothing to do with your ability to be a good citizen and contribute something worthwhile to society, it's all about how willing you are to do so.

although both are pointless, there is a difference between blaming people for the color of their skin, and blaming people for their social conduct and status

I am going to have to go with the insurrectionist definition of our right to bear arms and say that it's a good thing we can still own and use weapons. It is important to look at the 2nd amendment and try to understand why it was added in the first place. At the time, the United States was a very young government and country which was not very centralized. The 2nd amendment allows the common man to own and use a firearm so that if an army is needed by the federal government, it won't be hard to form using the common man. Also, because the United States was still a very young government fresh from independence, it was likely that things could turn sour again. The fact that the people were able to arm themselves meant that they could fight the government in such a case where the governing bodies took a bad turn. Although today we have a much more stable and centralized government, I think it is still important that citizens be able to own and use firearms not only out of defense for themselves, but just in case things become less stable. I'm not really anti-government or anything like that but people should never put too much faith in government. The root of the problem exists more from a lack of social reform rather than an abundance of weaponry. Although I'm sure banning firearms would help the problem, it's not going to solve the problem. If someone really wants to commit m!@#$%^&* murder, they'll find ways to do it, even if guns aren't being sold in stores. Knowing that it's cliche by now to say, it should probably still be re-iterated: Guns don't kill people, people kill people. EDIT: As a side note concerning the use of statistics. The biggest problem I have with statistics is when someone says anything along the lines of "You'll be X times more likely to die from Y if you Z." For instance, if someone stated "you'll be 10 times more likely to die from cancer if you smoke cigarettes." The effectiveness of this statement is greatly hindered if you consider that perhaps the original chance of you dying from cancer was 0.00001%. If you smoke, then you've increased your chances to 0.0001%. Of course, the statement would be nearly useless if you said it like that.

i'll talk to you on aim/msn so we can hammer out the specifics of what stats you want kept.