Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Unfortunately, for some really odd reason, a lot of people that "do"
> read the original texts, compare them with other faiths, and study the
> complex histories behind them, kind of end up... a lot less religious.
> Its almost as if "reading" any other books makes the whole thing look
> absurd and silly, or something...

It just shows a different interpretation of similar events many peoples
experienced in the old ages.

BTW, I love J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology.  Some think he created all of it out of
his mind, but I see it more like yet another interpretation of old mythologies,
legends and religious beliefs, including somewhat of Old Testment.  The Creation
is there, except it is far more detailed than in "Fiat Lux" and is made out of
music that turns into a vision of things to come.

God -- here called Eru Iluvatar (the one) -- first created many angelical beings
(Ainur) born out of his thought, each one modelled after a part of his mind.
Thus, each one was slow at first at comprehend their siblings, but by helping
God in the creation of the Music, they were given further understanting of
their brothers, by means of harmony.  Melkor was the most powerful of the Ainur
and began to try out new themes of his own into the Music, which began sounding
chaotic.  Many of the Ainur next to him were led into this new rhythm and many
others stopped, confused and tired.  Eventually, Iluvatar shows them his new
themes were actually just part of something bigger and not even his loudest
chords were able to detract from the character of the Music.  Melkor grews a
secret jealous of Iluvatar and, needless to say, is Satan under other name.

Ea (the universe) is created by the Music and in it, Arda (Earth) which would be
the birthplace for God's sons.  Many Ainur descendend into Earth, Melkor among
them, and became the Powers of the World (Valar), each one occupied by a part
of Arda's substance which was more like their own thematic embilishments during
the Music.  Needless to say, the Valar are like the Titans of Greek mythos and
later Gods.  They labored long to make Arda a habitable place for God's sons,
eventually fighting off the many destructions caused by Melkor's extremes and
jealous.

Loving Tolkien's amazing work -- a reinterpretation and tentative of
conciliation of many different myths, including Christian ones -- does not make
me less religious, though.  Not even historical sources of ancient Mesopotamia.
Like I said, they are different interpretations of old events, that you may
think are made-up man inventions, if you will...

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nemesis wrote:
> God is loving and kind.  To those who live by his Laws, anyway.

Sure doesn't seem that way. Ask any serpent today, for example.

> Thus, God *allowed* for Satan to tempt Job.  

You haven't actually read Job, have you?

> The one in which He creates light?  Yeah, cheap bastard...

I count everything up to getting kicked out of Eden as the first story.

In any case, not a whole lot of sense in arguing with the irrational.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> Well, one thing is certain, being "forced" to by family, or even
> abandoned/thrown out, according to studies, causes a "drastic" increase
> in drug abuse, high risk sex, and other negatives. Basically, if you
> treat someone like shit for who they are, they feel like shit, and the
> worse you treat them, the more they seek "other" things to distract them
> from your hate.

I take it Papa Hussein should have been more encouraging of his sons
decapitations and tortures. :P

> Those that "are" accepted by their families, however,
> show no more risk in any of these factors than a "straight" person in a
> loving family. Odd that, if what they where doing what so "twisted and
> wrong", as some people would suggest, that every other kind of sin would
> logically follow...

Why other kinds of sin when you already have a pet one? ;)

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> > God is loving and kind.  To those who live by his Laws, anyway.
>
> Sure doesn't seem that way. Ask any serpent today, for example.

Sure, that makes a lot of twisted sense. ;)

> > Thus, God *allowed* for Satan to tempt Job.
>
> You haven't actually read Job, have you?

"1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that
there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that
feareth God, and escheweth evil? 1:9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said,
Doth Job fear God for nought? 1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and
about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed
the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.

1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse
thee to thy face.

1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power;
only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the
presence of the LORD."

> > The one in which He creates light?  Yeah, cheap bastard...
>
> I count everything up to getting kicked out of Eden as the first story.

So, they disobey God and get kicked out of Disney?  Yeah, cheap bastard...

> In any case, not a whole lot of sense in arguing with the irrational.

I agree.

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Henderson [mailto:nos### [at] nospamcom]
> Generally, legal protections only become a significant issue when you
> get
> into immigration status for purposes of residency requirements.

Or in case someone goes to the hospital, or if you die, or if you want to 
buy property, or any of hundreds of other situations...

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

I said "share," not "scare!"

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nemesis wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
>> Well, one thing is certain, being "forced" to by family, or even
>> abandoned/thrown out, according to studies, causes a "drastic" increase
>> in drug abuse, high risk sex, and other negatives. Basically, if you
>> treat someone like shit for who they are, they feel like shit, and the
>> worse you treat them, the more they seek "other" things to distract them
>> from your hate.
> 
> I take it Papa Hussein should have been more encouraging of his sons
> decapitations and tortures. :P
> 
Huh?? What is it with some people and entirely unrelated and patently 
false comparisons. Oh, right.. I keep forgetting, one of the problems 
"believers" seem to have is that mass murder and torture is exactly 
equivalent to sucking another mans dick, which I suppose must, but the 
same insane definition, make someone that snuck a grape from the grocery 
store the equivalent of Pol Pot.

>> Those that "are" accepted by their families, however,
>> show no more risk in any of these factors than a "straight" person in a
>> loving family. Odd that, if what they where doing what so "twisted and
>> wrong", as some people would suggest, that every other kind of sin would
>> logically follow...
> 
> Why other kinds of sin when you already have a pet one? ;)
> 

Sorry, I don't find your comment the least bit wink worthy. The two 
combined show a entirely black and white, shallow, narrow minded (And 
not just because you refuse to follow the evidence where it leads, 
instead of believing in the words in some book written by people that 
thought the world was a flat disc. Don't bother arguing that one, the 
word used in the ancient version *is* disc, not "ball", which is a 
distinctly different word.), bigot. Tell me, why is it again that, if 
the Bible is right about this stuff, you don't also advocate stoning 
disobedient children to death, or selling your daughter to pay off 
debts, among the other atrocities in the same passages that you get your 
definitions of, "God doesn't like gays", from? Just wondering...

Natural is what is observed to be natural, not what the Babble insists 
must be. You people have been trying the later for 2,000 years as the 
defacto religion in control over much of the world, and thousands of 
years prior, with a track record of being dead wrong on pretty much 
every single thing it has ever "claimed" to be true, except those that 
just happen to coincide with the values and beliefs of people that have 
"other" religions, or none at all. Every time it has spoken as authority 
on something that it disagrees with about how the world works, people 
act, and what to do about it, *Christianity* ends up changing to conform 
to the real world, then makes up excuses for why it didn't actually get 
anything at all wrong, it was just some other "less enlightened sect" 
that got it wrong (even if the sect in question is like.. the original 
one, as in the case of all the times the Catholics have had to back 
peddle on things, and continue to do so.)

But why am I bothering to argue with you about it. As a general rule, 
those who can't see where they "may" be wrong are invariably impervious 
to all arguments, facts, evidence, or even, in some cases, their own 
religions "general" acceptance of something. That is why you get 70-80% 
moderates in Christianity, and some much smaller number of people that 
spend their time calling all the rest of them "false" Christians because 
they chose true morality over vain obsessions over who they think is the 
#1 greatest sinners in the world at the moment. And, its always gays, 
atheist, free thinkers, liberals, hippies, or some other group that 
isn't like them that is the *greatest evil*, even while fracking mass 
murderers sit in a cave some place and thumb their noses at "everything" 
they believe in, not just nit picky BS that a century from now the 
church will be making some non-apology to, for being unnecessarily mean.

I just don't comprehend how some people think...

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void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
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     }
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   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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nemesis wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Unfortunately, for some really odd reason, a lot of people that "do"
>> read the original texts, compare them with other faiths, and study the
>> complex histories behind them, kind of end up... a lot less religious.
>> Its almost as if "reading" any other books makes the whole thing look
>> absurd and silly, or something...
> 
> It just shows a different interpretation of similar events many peoples
> experienced in the old ages.
> 
No its not. If you knew a damn thing about them, and not just the "all 
faiths are the same" BS some churchs have been bandying about recently, 
it would be obvious that many of them are so fracking contradictory that 
you **can't** say that they are all the same, or talking about the same 
supposed events. No, each "tribe" separate, sometimes by so much that 
they rarely ever met, came up with different explanations, and other 
"later" tribes, who where bigger, more mobile, and usually more 
aggressive, mashed them all together to make up "new" ones. To claim 
otherwise shows a gross misunderstanding of the historical dates when 
various "religions" appeared, and where. You might as well try to argue 
than Scientology was based on Greek Mythology, for all that your claim 
that various "ancient" faiths where all *different interpretation* of 
the Christian faith. Well, in your case, you might be right, but for the 
wrong reasons, the Hebrew faith is a mish mash of stuff from all those 
"other" earlier religions, which it replaced, while throwing out parts 
it couldn't accept, and modern Christianity, a lot of *religious 
scholars* as well as historians, argue was Judaism mashed together with 
everything else available at the time, from more eastern mythology 
(Mithras), to Egyption myths, to Greek, to, you name it. Yeah, your 
right, Tolkien is probably the best example. A completely made up book 
of gibberish, which works as a pretty decent story, but is a result of 
cramming together hundreds of sources, none of which ever intended any 
of their mythologies to become part of a story that replaced them all in 
the minds of modern man. Now, if you can just get past using it as 
analogy and comprehend the *real* consequences of what that actually 
means...

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void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
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     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> Natural is what is observed to be natural, not what the Babble insists
> must be.

Like Hussein's natural instincts?

This reminds me of a great quote from Douglas Adams second book in the
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", where Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod's psychiatrist,
was discussing with Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, who has just exterminated half of
his crew in a disciplinary exercise:  "Well, I believe this is a perfectly
normal behaviour for a vogon, right?  This natural and healthy way of focusing
agressive instincts in acts of senseless violence." :)

What would the world be without any rules?

> But why am I bothering to argue with you about it. As a general rule,
> those who can't see where they "may" be wrong are invariably impervious
> to all arguments, facts, evidence, or even, in some cases, their own
> religions "general" acceptance of something.

I'm not impervious to arguments, facts or evidence and, being a geek with a
passion for science and all nerdy stuff, I have obviously questioned my faith
quite a few times.  But then I think to myself, "WTH, I don't want to be as
lame, weeny and cranky as all those atheists fellows seem to be." ;)

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On 11-Jan-09 2:46, nemesis wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
>> Natural is what is observed to be natural, not what the Babble insists
>> must be.
> 
> Like Hussein's natural instincts?

Can we apply Godwin's law in this case?

> This reminds me of a great quote from Douglas Adams second book in the
> "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", where Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod's psychiatrist,
> was discussing with Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, who has just exterminated half of
> his crew in a disciplinary exercise:  "Well, I believe this is a perfectly
> normal behaviour for a vogon, right?  This natural and healthy way of focusing
> agressive instincts in acts of senseless violence." :)

But Halfrunt was only in it for the money, so he would applaud 
everything any client would say.

> What would the world be without any rules?

Not all rules have the same moral weight. You have those that have been 
the result of long debate taking every point of view into account and 
you have those that are based on some interpretation of a complex story 
that was taken out of context and retold, retranslated and rewritten a 
few times. The latter is often indistinguishable from a personal view of 
someone. In the history of the church there have been men in power that 
were frightened of homosexuals for some reasons, so that has been 
codified. It is up to you to decide if anyone that points at the bible 
to defend his or her hatred of gays is having a point or that the 
passages they point to are taken out of context and possibly not part of 
the original teachings but later additions/selections and that the 
passages they don't point to have indeed no value.

>> But why am I bothering to argue with you about it. As a general rule,
>> those who can't see where they "may" be wrong are invariably impervious
>> to all arguments, facts, evidence, or even, in some cases, their own
>> religions "general" acceptance of something.
> 
> I'm not impervious to arguments, facts or evidence and, being a geek with a
> passion for science and all nerdy stuff, I have obviously questioned my faith
> quite a few times.  But then I think to myself, "WTH, I don't want to be as
> lame, weeny and cranky as all those atheists fellows seem to be." ;)
> 

Thanks ;)
BTW it is funny but the 'true believers' that I know are more of a 
'lame, weeny and cranky' sort than the atheists that I know. A typical 
selection effect I suppose. One tends to think that someone that one 
agrees with is of the same group. Only those that say thinks that makes 
you feel uncomfortable can be identified as belonging to another group. 
As a result you assume that everyone of that group is like that. Which 
in general is not the case of course.

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nemesis wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
>> Natural is what is observed to be natural, not what the Babble insists
>> must be.
> 
> Like Hussein's natural instincts?
> 
Well, if you really want to make the argument that Hussein had some sort 
of genetic based mental illness, you might have the point. But, that 
just goes back to the lame argument you have been making that such 
things are merely "challenges". The irony being, of course, that people 
who "do" have those sorts of illnesses, while in the modern world, can 
sometimes be medicated, cannot be cured, nor can they be taught to 
"control" their illness and "choose" to be sane and rational people. So, 
if everything he did was his "natural" instinct, it would mean he was 
probably not salvageable anyway, which still contradicts your position.

But, I see you opted to gloss over the false equivalence issue by 
changing the subject, which is pretty much what you expect from someone 
who can't defend their original claims *of* equivalence. I'll give you a 
9 of hearts "muddying the waters", and maybe 8 of clubs "red herring", 
from the denialist deck of cards for that one.

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void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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