On 8-7-2009 21:14, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> But also this whole notion of "traditional marriage" being defended
> 
> "Traditional" marriage when I was born didn't include allowing whites to 
> marry blacks, either, so I'm not sure I *want* to support "traditional 
> marriage."
> 
What about white and asian(indian) or asian(indian) and black? (or 
should I have used yellow(red) to maintain symmetry)?

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On 8-7-2009 21:47, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:14:18 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> But also this whole notion of "traditional marriage" being defended
>> "Traditional" marriage when I was born didn't include allowing whites to
>> marry blacks, either, so I'm not sure I *want* to support "traditional
>> marriage."
> 
> Yeah, agreed with that.  It strikes me that those who defend so-called 
> "traditional marriage" don't really know what traditional marriage is.  
> They've co-opted the term to mean "one man and one woman", but that's 
> actually a relatively recent thing when it comes to the history of 
> humanity, from what I've read on the subject.

There is your problem, you have been reading too much.

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andrel wrote:
> BTW is there in English a word to describe someone who thinks there is a 
> higher power but does not know what exactly? 

A deist?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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On 9-7-2009 21:52, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> BTW is there in English a word to describe someone who thinks there is 
>> a higher power but does not know what exactly? 
> 
> A deist?
> 
That implies god, I was looking for something even more general. 
Something that does not even imply a personality and includes options 
like 'the sum of all spirits of all living beings' or whatever.

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On 9-7-2009 22:41, andrel wrote:
> On 9-7-2009 21:52, Darren New wrote:
>> andrel wrote:
>>> BTW is there in English a word to describe someone who thinks there 
>>> is a higher power but does not know what exactly? 
>>
>> A deist?
>>
> That implies god, I was looking for something even more general. 
> Something that does not even imply a personality and includes options 
> like 'the sum of all spirits of all living beings' or whatever.

Tried my usual approach of looking it up on the Dutch wikipedia and then 
switching to English (should have done that before asking). Guess what, 
I end up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ietsism .

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andrel wrote:
> On 9-7-2009 21:52, Darren New wrote:
>> andrel wrote:
>>> BTW is there in English a word to describe someone who thinks there 
>>> is a higher power but does not know what exactly? 
>>
>> A deist?
>>
> That implies god, I was looking for something even more general.
> Something that does not even imply a personality

I'm not sure how you can attribute a personality to something that by 
definition has no interaction with the universe. :-)

> and includes options 
> like 'the sum of all spirits of all living beings' or whatever.

Jedi?  Or just spiritual?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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On 9-7-2009 23:42, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> On 9-7-2009 21:52, Darren New wrote:
>>> andrel wrote:
>>>> BTW is there in English a word to describe someone who thinks there 
>>>> is a higher power but does not know what exactly? 
>>>
>>> A deist?
>>>
>> That implies god, I was looking for something even more general.
>> Something that does not even imply a personality
> 
> I'm not sure how you can attribute a personality to something that by 
> definition has no interaction with the universe. :-)

I think that the idea is that god does have an interaction with the 
universe, otherwise he/she/it might just as well not exist, you won't 
notice the difference... wait a minute, didn't we have this discussion 
before?

>> and includes options like 'the sum of all spirits of all living 
>> beings' or whatever.
> 
> Jedi?  Or just spiritual?
> 
whatever

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> The difference between "religious socialism" (I like that term) and 
> "government socialism" is that the latter has control over your life in 
> the here and now.  The former?  Well, that's just your eternal soul we're 
> talking about - so doing it at that point is good for your eternal 
> existence.  But as for taking care of people in the current existence, 
> eh, screw 'em. ;-)
> 
> Jim 

I would argue otherwise. The whole point of religion is to control 
people "now", in order to save them "later", in some vague sense. So.. 
Might be more accurate to say that the intent of the two differs in that 
government socialism attempts to make real life better, while often 
getting it wrong, while church socialism tries to make the after life 
better, and usually doesn't much care if they get the here and now 
wrong, as long as the goal of making the afterlife better is reached 
(case in point, the number of wackos that insist that lying is OK, as 
long as it helps convert more people to Jesus, which is a "higher" truth 
than the mere trivia of what ever they lied about).

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Chambers wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> What if God told them it was their mission to correct the Church?  
>> Then the Church's response would be to throw them out as a heretic.
> 
> If God spoke to you tomorrow, and told you to go correct the Mormon 
> church, I would assume that He also tried to speak to the current 
> leaders of the Mormon church.  An action as drastic as asking you to 
> correct them must mean that they aren't listening to Him anymore.
> 
> Assuming that God wants the Mormon church corrected enough to ask you to 
> do it, I would also expect Him to empower you to achieve that end.
> 

Is a fun video from some scientist, last name Condell, I think, which 
basically states to the effect, "So why doesn't god do X and fix 
everything? Well, its rather obvious isn't it, since if we assume he 
exists at all, his track record, based on the Bible, shows someone as 
incompetent, stupid and gullible as his followers." And, therefor, in 
this case, bright enough to so empower someone, actually bother to 
correct the current leaders, instead of just picking some random person 
to "fix" things, without telling the leaders anything at all, or having 
the actual foresight to recognize how much of a failure the attempt will be.

Needless to say, Condell has a rather dim view about how dim god would 
have to be, if he existed. lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> I hadn't thought about that before this conversation. :-)
>> That's not the half of it.  Mormons actually believe in a form of
>> Stewardship where everything is essentially owned by the Church, but
>> given to the members to use (and care for) responsibly.  However, God
>> stopped asking them to try living that way, because people in general
>> are too selfish, greedy and petty to live up to it.
> 
> That's interesting, I hadn't heard that before.

It's not something they advertise, of course, since most people have 
enough of a problem with the 10% tithe :)  If you look for information 
on it, it's called the Law of Consecration.

>> At one point, after everyone is righteous enough, that policy will again
>> be implemented.
> 
> Which kinda trods on God's grant of "free will", no?

Not any more than having commandments in general does, I believe.

-- 
Chambers

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