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From: Patrick Elliott
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 27 Nov 2007 17:26:13
Message: <MPG.21b6476d5106481898a080@news.povray.org>
In article <474b48ee$1@news.povray.org>, rli### [at] speakeasynet says...
> "Patrick Elliott" <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote in message
> news:MPG.21b4e9db800f84a798a07f@news.povray.org...
> 
> "When you can't tell the difference between satire and what your oppositi
on
> actually believes, its about time to have a good laugh at it all"
> 
> If that's not a great .sig file I don't know what is.
> 
Hmm. Nice idea. Which reminds me, I need to adjust mine a bit, since it 
doesn't account for XP or Vista. There, that should do it.

As for examples of how these clowns operate. The latest BS from Dembski 
involved, roughly 63 or so days ago, being called on the fact that he 
grabbed video from YouTube, which was produced by Harvard for its 
biology talks, *someone* dubbed over a lot of creationist BS, then he 
used it in his talks. His non-apology amounted to claiming he didn't do 
anything wrong, it was just lying there on the internet, he did 
attribute it, "and here is a very blurry image capture", which you can't 
read the main title in, let alone the any supposed attribution, and that 
he promises not to use *this* one again. Mind you, the fact that his 
actions involve copyright infringement, misrepresentation, and, based on 
one statute, piracy (misusing of someone else's work, not for parody, 
but as a means of directly misrepresenting the original work), seems to 
just go right over his head. And the DI, who are supposedly Christians 
can't, for some incomprehensible reason, grasp that its also breaks the 
8th and 9th commandments, against stealing and bearing false witness.

But then, this is what you expect from them and Dembski. Nothing is 
wrong, as long as it supports their cause, and Dembski is never wrong, 
as long as he can come up with some silly babbling non-apology for how 
he misused, misstated or intentionally distorted someone else's work. 
Its getting old at this point.

But it does represent their entire argument in a nut shell, "Its 
unbelievably complex, we don't comprehend how it got that way, including 
the explanation we either didn't bother to listen to, or intentionally 
deleted in order to insert our own 'theory', and therefor, because we 
don't understand it, and it is scary and confusing to us, ***you*** 
people are all wrong and conspiring against us, and well, something sort 
of, but maybe not actually, God did it instead."

Its the same argument they started with, the same whining about science 
getting everything wrong, the same litany of complaints about stuff they 
don't and/or can't comprehend, the same insistence, in the face of 
evidence, that it all makes no sense and is too complicated, and the 
same hypothesis that somehow, if we just stopped asking them for a 
theory, evidence or **research** everyone could just all agree that they 
have a theory, have shown evidence (instead of just complaints) and that 
what they do qualifies as research. I find the way these people think to 
be profoundly disturbing, not the least because they would agree 100% 
what science is *if* you where asking them how a CSI lab works, but 
insist its a conspiracy against them if the same methods are used to 
prove that all they have is more accurately described as old moth eaten 
clothing, with no emperor. Kind of the mirror image reversal of what 
your average con artist tries to sell.

Oh, and true to form, as soon as some people tried to ask him for an 
explanation about how he got the video, who edited it, and why he 
thought it was OK to use it, he immediately closed the commenting system 
to anyone that didn't kiss his ass. Predictable as some people praying 
for rain.

-- 
void main () {

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

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From: Tim Attwood
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 29 Nov 2007 03:13:36
Message: <474e74b0$1@news.povray.org>
>> I'm not sure about the horses ass, but the
>> vehemence of anti-Christian rhetoric lately
>> reminds me of the attitude of the Germans
>> during the holocaust. "Might as put it,"
>> or maybe them, "somewhere that it's out
>> of everyone else's way."
>>
>> Certainly his article does nothing to
>> convince those who disagree.

> [weeklong rant removed for brevity]
> You are then stuck with either a) just killing the stupid fool
> that asked the question, or backing it with "some sort" of evidence.

Patrick is making my point for me.
Maybe I should keep a suitcase packed just in case.


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From: Patrick Elliott
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 29 Nov 2007 22:32:03
Message: <MPG.21b9321d88e1646798a081@news.povray.org>
In article <474e74b0$1@news.povray.org>, tim### [at] comcastnet says...
> >> I'm not sure about the horses ass, but the
> >> vehemence of anti-Christian rhetoric lately
> >> reminds me of the attitude of the Germans
> >> during the holocaust. "Might as put it,"
> >> or maybe them, "somewhere that it's out
> >> of everyone else's way."
> >>
> >> Certainly his article does nothing to
> >> convince those who disagree.
> 
> > [weeklong rant removed for brevity]
> > You are then stuck with either a) just killing the stupid fool
> > that asked the question, or backing it with "some sort" of evidence.
> 
> Patrick is making my point for me.
> Maybe I should keep a suitcase packed just in case.
> 
Sorry, but what point? That some people can make rhetorical statements 
about two solutions when they ***intend*** one of the options to be so 
absurd that only the later one makes sense? But yeah, you should 
probably pack your bags anyway, since some of the people on the other 
side ****do**** mean that the former solution is preferable to actually 
providing any sort of evidence for their position, and they have said so 
often, and on national television no less. Nonbelievers may make 
comments about doing stupid BS like killing people, as a reference to 
what the other side **has** done, but I don't know any of them that make 
it public policy that assassination, concentration camps and/or torture 
is right. Fundamentalists... have no problem doing those things in 
"fact", while trying to convince the public that such things are not 
standard policy for them (is it pure coincidence that in recent years 
the Air Force and other branches have been pushing evangelicalism as 
more important even that following their oaths to protect the 
constitution, even as we get cases of torture, wrongful imprisonment and 
people vanishing into jails without any right to have a trial?). Mean 
while, people like me are making snide comments about their antics, 
asking how the @#$#@$@# religion is supposed to be superior to our lack 
of it, when one of the most basic principles of religions is 
***supposed*** to be that it tries to stop people from doing this crap, 
and sometimes writing best selling books, in the case of people like 
Dawkins, which piss off the defenders of faith, who can't answer that 
basic question, "What good is religion if it can't do what it promises, 
but making people more moral, and in the worst cases, actually 
***promotes*** and protects the lunatics?"

Case in point. Recently in Canada someone just lost their job. After 15 
years of incompetence, insufficient over sight, breaking up families and 
sending who knows how many innocent people to jail for child abuse, it 
turns out he probably didn't do one single autopsy in his carrier 
correctly, all the cases he testified at where probably invalid, most of 
the convictions being based heavily on **his** testimony, etc. And what 
defense did those working with and over him have for believing that he 
was only making the occasional minor error, and everything he did should 
be trusted?

-*-*-
    Ontario's deputy chief coroner admits he failed to recognize warning 
signs about a controversial pathologist because he was blinded by his 
own high regard for the doctor, whom he considered to be a trustworthy, 
religious man.

    "I'm quite disappointed that I missed (out on) the signs that were 
there because I put him on too high a pedestal," Dr. Jim Cairns 
yesterday told the Public Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in 
Ontario.

    He was commenting on Dr. Charles Smith who was found by a panel of 
five internationally respected experts to have made "significant flaws" 
in 20 child-death investigations.

    "He came across as a very sincere religious individual and perhaps. 
... I put too much emphasis on his religious aspect. ... I felt that his 
religious aspect made it unlikely that he wasn't telling the truth," 
Cairns explained. Smith worships with the Christian and Missionary 
Alliance, a Baptist-like group.
-*-*-

Note the number of times his immediate superior mentions lack of 
supervision, failure to notice the errors, or anything **except** his 
overriding certainly that someone with such a fine religious ideal 
couldn't possibly be a complete screwup. I count... *0*. If the guy is 
covering his own incompetence by suggesting he was too blinded by the 
halo over the guys head, its not helping on bit.

And this is only one of several cases I have read about in the last 24 
hours.

Point is, you are missing the point, to beat on a the stupid strawman 
suggestion that people like me think just like these people do. We 
don't. We value real solutions. They value imaginary solutions, and 
repeating old solutions, over and over, in hopes something will turn out 
different. Guess what? One of the oldest solutions in the world is, "If 
they won't convert to worship me as God, kill them!" And everyone from 
Robertson to Falwell, to you name one of the 
evangelicals/fundamentalists that lead this movement, has, without being 
ironic or using anything remotely similar to rhetoric, stated flat out 
they think some people not only deserve to be dead, but that they 
**wish** it was possible to simply kill them. And its these kinds of 
nuts that protect the kinds of nuts like Charles Smith, or the even 
bigger nuts among Catholic parishes, who rape children.

I suggest you buy a clue before attributing every silly off hand comment 
by me any anyone like me as literal truth, that you get a clue who you 
*are* defending by proxy, in suggesting that we are the would be Nazis, 
who want concentration camps and to literally kill people.

Let me guess, your next argument is going to be, "Man, I can't believe 
my slander of his character resulting in such an angry response! I must 
have touched a nerve." How about I call you something like asshole, then 
you can go on a tirade about how you are not one, and I can come back 
with, "Man, I must have really touched a nerve!". lol Hell yes you 
touched a nerve, but don't presume that a willingness to defend my own 
sense of honor has anything to do with your delusions about what I 
really think *should* be done to these kinds of dipshits. The 
constitution worked damn well for 200 years to keep these idiots in 
their place, until they started using the internet, talk shows and 
similar "debates" to the ones they use to promote Unintelligent Design 
to rewrite history and claim that such a barrier doesn't exist. Its one 
thing I agree with them about. We need to restore the intent of the 
founding fathers and uphold the constitution. The problem is, they think 
that means making shit up about what those people said, and what the 
constitution is supposed to do about it.

The last thing we need is dead people. First off, only an idiot would 
make these people martyrs. Its much more fun to sit back and watch to 
see how many of them die while soliciting a prostitute, or, in one case, 
tying themselves up in a bunch of neck ties, for auto erotica, while 
wearing two wetsuits, and with a dildo shoved up their butt. You just 
can't get that kind of idiocy and blindingly obvious hypocrisy from a 
corpse. Second, you can't point out to people how insane someone "is", 
nor drive them into making it obvious to everyone in public, after they 
are dead. And those are just the practical reasons for not doing it. 
Unlike these halfwits, my morals are not selectively provisional on who 
the person I am applying them to is. If some atheist says something 
stupid, like Sam Harris did in his book when he claimed that their might 
be some valid idea in the paranormal, but then cited books by two of the 
most well know con artist and frauds in the industry as *evidence*, then 
I am all over them too. Its just that hitting frauds, hypocrites, con 
artists, liars, pedophiles, and even murderers and arsonists, among 
religious people is like handing someone who is mixing bags of 
fertilizer, while covered in motor oil, a lit match, and expecting 
anything other than a loud *BOOM!*. Its almost too easy. And its only 
the depths of dishonesty, irrationality, depravity, ignorance and 
general insanity of **some** members, combined with they fact that most 
people, including the vast majority of Christians that should know 
better, actually believe it when these nuts claim to *control* the 
Christian faith and/or the country.

As PZ Myers stated today:

"I should clarify something, though. Many people assume I post these 
little tales of deplorable behavior by the religious in some misguided 
effort to show causality, that I'm trying to argue that they do these 
wicked things because they are Christian. This is not correct. It's far, 
far from the truth ? I know many good people are also Christian or 
Jewish.

The point is simpler: Christianity claims to be a force for morality 
which encourages good behavior on the part of its practitioners. It's 
quite clear that it is not when even its clergy seem unable to find 
their religion to be a source of moral suasion. Religion doesn't make 
you bad, necessarily, but it sure doesn't make you good, either."

-- 
void main () {

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

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From: Tim Attwood
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 30 Nov 2007 04:31:10
Message: <474fd85e$1@news.povray.org>
>I suggest you buy a clue before attributing every silly off hand comment
>by me any anyone like me as literal truth, that you get a clue who you
>*are* defending by proxy, in suggesting that we are the would be Nazis,
>who want concentration camps and to literally kill people.

It's simple crowd psychology, enough angry rhetoric and scapegoating
by a few and soon the crowd will do what the few would not.

Any good insult has at its heart a small grain of truth. So if I've managed
to touch a nerve then perhaps you should wonder what that truth is.


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From: Patrick Elliott
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 30 Nov 2007 23:23:28
Message: <MPG.21ba8fab9575a11298a082@news.povray.org>
In article <474fd85e$1@news.povray.org>, tim### [at] comcastnet says...
> >I suggest you buy a clue before attributing every silly off hand comment
> >by me any anyone like me as literal truth, that you get a clue who you
> >*are* defending by proxy, in suggesting that we are the would be Nazis,
> >who want concentration camps and to literally kill people.
> 
> It's simple crowd psychology, enough angry rhetoric and scapegoating
> by a few and soon the crowd will do what the few would not.
> 
> Any good insult has at its heart a small grain of truth. So if I've manag
ed
> to touch a nerve then perhaps you should wonder what that truth is. 
> 
Sometimes an insult is simply so common that you can't allow it to 
stand. Its almost a running joke that when ever some right wing lunatic 
wants to talk about how bad people that are not like them are, they trot 
out atheists and Hitler as an example, and insist we would do the same 
BS thing he did, if given the change. Mind you, part of the fracking 
problem **is** group psychology, but as a group secular people, non-
believers and atheists are often described, even among their own, using 
the term, "Herding cats." Believers actually *want* to be considered 
sheep though. Which group do you think is more likely to react violently 
as a group? Keeping in mind that nearly every poll in the US says that 
like 90% of people think the Bible is to some degree fact, that the 
Christian God is the true God, etc., 60% of them think Christ really was 
some resurrected version of God, and that only 42% say they agree with 
evolution, never mind the fact that 50% of **them** insist that God was 
somehow involved with it.

We have the second worst score world wide for science, the highest 
percentage of religious nuts, outside the Middle East, and most of us 
believe stuff that even the Catholic church is willing to admit (and 
they started the whole mess) is total bullshit. Worse, the nuts actually 
think that making us less scientific, more religious driven and more 
nuts will *solve* the social problems, economic wobbles and failure as a 
nation to show basic science literacy. We have become a nation full of 
ignorant people, who value blind faith and feel good beliefs over 
evidence and reason, at least in the current generation. The next 
generation, even among the evangelicals, smell something foul in the 
air, but they still think they can keep the irrational idiocies they 
believe in, which are not even based on a sane reading of their own 
Bible, and somehow *fix* the stuff they innately sense is drastically 
wrong with the situation. The nuts know this, and what are they doing? 
The same thing Hitler did. Pushing right wing nuts into the USO to 
entertain the troops, trying to throw out religions from our armed 
forces they don't like, and using contacts with the crazies "in" the 
military to not just replace chaplains with ones that think that only 
*one* kind of service should be allowed, but opening fundamentalist 
outreach programs on military bases. Some of them have **4** such 
organizations on base, all of them with ties to the same fundie out 
reach groups.

It hardly matters if, when push comes to shove, most people don't want 
them in power. If they manage to corrupt the people that have the guns 
***and*** elect some nut like Huckabee to the presidency on top of it, 
by playing to the delusions and paranoia of the majority, they will make 
sure everyone that isn't the right religion, or doesn't keep their mouth 
shut, is put into camps, imprisoned, or just disappeared. They already 
manage to convince *some* people when they talk about removing books 
with religious content, like Golden Compass (to uphold the separation of 
church and state, nudge, nudge), while somehow making all sorts of silly 
justifications why *their* books, scripture, etc., don't count. They 
basically own the FCC, since most anyone that cared about running the 
place properly quit after Bush appointed the fool in charge of it now. 
Why stop at a list of words you can't say? Why not a list of subjects 
that are "dangerous to the well being of society or the stability of the 
country"?

Two years ago, I wouldn't have been this paranoid. Today... Sorry, but 
these people just keep getting more and more nuts, the country becomes 
more and more absurd from the viewpoint of 99% of the rest of Western 
civilization, and a lot of the people in the East too, including, 
ironically, China at this point in many ways, and while I have hope for 
the next generation who all pretty much think we are trying to white 
water raft through a sewer at this point and we better hope we don't 
light any matches when we hit a gas pocket, the current generation in 
control is as likely to side **with** some charismatic leader that makes 
a good excuse for purging the nation of dangerous people, than they are 
to appose them, especially if the nut saying it has 100% complete 
control over a military that has received, as part of its military 
training, the dogma that only Christians qualify as citizens, the 
religious right is 100% right about everything, and that its their duty 
to defend the constitution against infidels.

As the ancient Chinese curse says, "May you live in interesting times." 
I just want to live through them, and I am not going to be apologetic 
about, unjustifiably tolerant of, or shy about fighting the good fight 
against ideas or ideologies that claim one thing, but either fail to 
deliver, or does the opposite, or the people that defend such a thing.

As to how group behavior might lead "us" to doing bad things... True, 
save that the groups isn't generally making such statements at all. I am 
hardly an expert spokesman, I don't have vast skills as a statesman, and 
I do **often** choice phrases or ideas intended to convey my irritation, 
which has nothing to do with my own desires, and everything to do with 
just pointing out how pissed off I am. That is why, in public, I let the 
people that are good at this stuff make the statements. They are *far* 
better at it. And some, like Greta Christina:

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/

do so with a profound grace and choice of words that often leaves me 
absolutely astounded. And that is without the fact that she often talks 
about some subjects, like what is acceptable erotically, which are also 
things I either have personal pet peeves about, vis a vi my dislike of 
the common rules people "claim" to abide by, but often secretly ignore 
(because its just not "appropriate to claim you think they are OK, even 
if you do them in private"... --eye roll--), or agree are **not** 
thought about rationally by people.

And in the case of my particular example, why is it that ***years*** 
after the Kinsey Report was released, probably 80% of the population 
find stuff that 80% of the population "admits" it does/did even then, 
and more like 95% now, still considered, strange, weird, unnatural, 
immoral or sick? I mean WTF? It make no more sense to me than why some 
clown who spends 164 hours a week, not including sleep time, using 
evidence, reason and logic to decide how to do "everything", finds it 
reasonable to spend 4 hours on Sunday listening to some clown tell them 
that they didn't actually make any of those choices themselves, and that 
everything in the world works via magic. Where they asleep the other 164 
hours, so didn't notice that *they* where the ones making the choices, 
and more to the point, that the universe kind of did its thing 
"despite" their wishing that the day would end 2 hours early, so they 
wouldn't have to work the rest of their shift, or other stuff that 
*magic* would presumably allow to happen, instead of the harsh reality 
that **no one** has *ever*, to use one of the most blatant examples, 
never regrown a missing limb, despite all the people claiming to cure 
everything from the common cold to cancer via Sunday services? 
Compartmentalization my butt. Some of these people must leave their 
brains in the car before they walk into a church. lol

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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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From: nemesis
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 1 Dec 2007 01:40:01
Message: <web.47510172922777eb8442668d0@news.povray.org>
Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> That is why, in public, I let the
> people that are good at this stuff make the statements. They are *far*
> better at it. And some, like Greta Christina:
>
> http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/
>
> do so with a profound grace and choice of words that often leaves me
> absolutely astounded.

looks like a slut and sounds like a slut.  oh wait, she's actually a pro... :P

That was a loong rant, sir.  The thing atheists don't seem to grasp is that they
sound just about as annoying and boring in their anti-religion rants as
religious fanatics in their convert stories...


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 1 Dec 2007 12:37:07
Message: <47519bc3$1@news.povray.org>
Patrick Elliott wrote:
> of it, when one of the most basic principles of religions is 
> ***supposed*** to be that it tries to stop people from doing this crap, 

I think that's the basic fallacy right there.  Religion has nothing to 
do with *what* morals you have.

If your God or Gods tells you to slay people, that's what you do. Go 
read the Old Testament, where the Jews torched entire cities and 
committed genocide at the bequest of JHVH.

Many modern people *say* their religion is one of peace and kindness, 
but to a large extent, it really isn't. And certainly it's not true that 
religion, in general, is supposed to make you nice. Every monotheistic 
religion I know of has the prime directive of obedience, not kindness. 
If you have the choice of kindness or obedience, you're supposed to pick 
obedience.  (Or, as one of my friends put it, "Sure, Jews are the chosen 
people. That's not really a *good* thing.")

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.


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From: Warp
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 1 Dec 2007 13:12:33
Message: <4751a411@news.povray.org>
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If your God or Gods tells you to slay people, that's what you do. Go 
> read the Old Testament, where the Jews torched entire cities and 
> committed genocide at the bequest of JHVH.

  It also says in another part that God said to someone to chop some wood
to make a fire. Does this mean that everyone who believes the Bible must
go and chop wood to make a fire? No, it just means that God said to someone
to chop some wood for a fire, nothing more, nothing less. Creating a doctrine
from this would be adding something to the Bible that isn't there, which is
explicitly prohibited.

  Of course there are some people who go ahead and create doctrines and
ideologies from whatever they want, but that doesn't mean they are right.
It's just a convenient excuse to fulfill whatever their messed up heads
wants them to do.

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: andrel
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 1 Dec 2007 13:41:58
Message: <4751AAF6.70905@hotmail.com>
nemesis wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
>> That is why, in public, I let the
>> people that are good at this stuff make the statements. They are *far*
>> better at it. And some, like Greta Christina:
>>
>> http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/
>>
>> do so with a profound grace and choice of words that often leaves me
>> absolutely astounded.
> 
> looks like a slut and sounds like a slut.  oh wait, she's actually a pro... :P
> 
> That was a loong rant, sir. 
Indeed it was. I don't think that helps to get the message across. 
Perhaps Patrick would also benefit from watching some Marx Brothers 
movies ;)
> The thing atheists don't seem to grasp is that they
> sound just about as annoying and boring in their anti-religion rants as
> religious fanatics in their convert stories...
> 
As just another atheist I'd like to point out that atheism is a religion 
too. Many deists think that an atheist is someone who is not convinced 
that God does exist (or worse: not yet). They are wrong. I *believe* 
that God does not exist and I mean that in the same way as a Christian 
or Muslim or whatever believes the opposite. I.e. I *know* that God does 
not exit moreover my ethical values are fundamentally based on the non 
existence of God. If it turned out she did exist after all, I would need 
a couple of weeks to rethink my ethics.
We atheist have no reason to form churches and that means that we have 
no religious leaders. Sadly that means that our believe is less 
protected than the church forming religions. That is already subtly 
noticeable even in the Netherlands. In the US it seems to be much worse, 
and under the inspired leadership of the current president it has 
apparently even reached the level of discrimination. I think that was 
one of the more important points of Patrick.


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From: andrel
Subject: Re: Getting Kenned Ham, without paying.
Date: 1 Dec 2007 16:11:34
Message: <4751CE06.8090101@hotmail.com>
Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> If your God or Gods tells you to slay people, that's what you do. Go 
>> read the Old Testament, where the Jews torched entire cities and 
>> committed genocide at the bequest of JHVH.
> 
>   It also says in another part that God said to someone to chop some wood
> to make a fire. Does this mean that everyone who believes the Bible must
> go and chop wood to make a fire? No, it just means that God said to someone
> to chop some wood for a fire, nothing more, nothing less. Creating a doctrine
> from this would be adding something to the Bible that isn't there, which is
> explicitly prohibited.
> 
>   Of course there are some people who go ahead and create doctrines and
> ideologies from whatever they want, but that doesn't mean they are right.
> It's just a convenient excuse to fulfill whatever their messed up heads
> wants them to do.
> 
Although you are theoretically right, history teaches that things often 
go differently. Take for instance the 6th commandment: "Thou shalt not 
murder/kill". That does not leave open anything you would say. Well, 
(religious) leaders tend to read that as "Thou shalt not murder another 
human being" and then start defining what they think is and isn't a 
human being. Popular exceptions to this simple rule are: homosexuals, 
prostitutes, unborn children, incurable diseased with lots of pain, 
convicted criminals, Jews, Christians, Muslim, atheists ...
Most people see the problem with that, but if your religious leader of 
choice keeps repeating that homosexuals are below dogs and that you 
should treat them as such, you may eventually believe him.
Other examples: Last year or so, an imam met one of our ministers for a 
discussion on integration. He refused to shake her outstretched hand 
claiming that his religion does not allow him to touch a woman other 
than a relative. What about these city councils that do not allow a 
performance if it is scheduled on sunday, if it is not a type of music 
that they consider Christian, or if the poster to announce it is not 
deemed decent enough.
I am afraid that a lot of people in responsible religious positions 
think about ethics and reach conclusions that make it fully justified to 
use your 'messed up heads' phrase. But in stead of sending them to an 
asylum, we back off because it is 'religion' and 'thus' protected by 
law. (This would be where I start a rant on 'freedom of religion' vs 
'freedom of culture' but I won't, this post is already too long).


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