Gorgon

Its true that the creationist got their hooks in primary education. The curriculum's are decided on the state level and following a judgment they now have to pretend that creation science is not complete nonsense, by 'allowing for the possibility of intelligent design'. Thats all fine, very egalitarian, but it doesn't belong in a science textbook. This battle was fought once before in the 50s and 60s, back then the US needed to go to the moon, to prove that they were more technically advanced than the soviets. The creationists were stamped out without a moments notice, no room for it in a cold war. Now they are resuirrging, and again choosing education as the battlefield.

If by smart you mean completely immune to logic, then yes.

mm, yes, and being smarter than a creationist is not really that impressive. He's like kicking someone who is lying down by default.

When you are crying about persecution it helps not to indulge in it yourself, makes the whole exercise a bit more believable

I hope you don't mean to suggest that offending creationists is the same as offending christians, because that would just be blatantly offending, to christians. On a side note, I hate having to worry about who I offend all the time. If people just grew tougher skin we would all get along so much better.

Faith is a scary thing indeed

Ohh I haven't done anything courageous. Storms can't do very much to a large ferry other than to rock it around. It wasn't like I sailed the yacht either, I was just there.

When I was little I was in the middle of a tropic typhoon on a yacht with a bunch of hippies, namely my father and sister. We actually sailed right into the eye of the storm by accident, we are talking a storm the size of France here, which saved our lives. A lot of speculation about how lucky we were. Didn't make me see the light. I've been in real storms at sea later on in life. I see why fishermen are invariably deeply religious, and of course I have prayed in some private desperate moment like a hypocrite in the past. I would definitely prefer to be religious, there is a lot of strength in conviction, but I'm still not convinced. So there it is.

I think easter involves going to church, but none of my family actually does it. Personally, I'm agnostic, undecided as it were. Perhaps one day I will see Jebus and be converted, religiously awakened, and perhaps not.

More importantly though, it was Karl's weapon of choice in Die Hard.

I like the Steyr AUG, It just looks really mean, and how could we do without an AK47

Speaking in these terms set me thinking back to an earlier discussino we had about chaos and order. I remembered that I argued that since all life is negatively entropic, we might regard entropy as the opposite of life. Therefore a universal definition of evil for any thinking (alive) being would be that which is entropic. Consider Maoist China or Nazi Germany for a minute, states where absolute order coincides with absolutes chaos, the constant revolution, kids running around with little red books burning thousands of years of history, the ruthless pursuit of mass murder of a Jewish population. - but the trains run on time, and unless you want to wind up on the wrong side of an unstoppable mass movement you better start making the right noises, and having the right opinions. No place for diversity here.

No. You saved a life at a cost of only a slight business inconvenience to a successful merchant. The fact that it was your own is completely irrelevant. In the example the action does not appear evil, not predetermined to cause harm, but rather to save life. Nevertheless I prefer to measure evil with the negative impact your actions have on others, because the 'you' in the equation is tied to the notions of selfishness and selflessness, you can't always presume to know why people do what they do, which is why it's important to keep an eye on the ball ; on the negative effect your actions have on those around you. Notwithstanding these unlikely hypothetical moral dilemmas that attempt to wiggle out of either a good or an evil response.

Sounds like an incredibly minor selfish act, one that the merchant will barely notice. You can consider yourself 5% evil and 95% undetermined.

The perpetration of genital mutilation through generations is a perfect example of religion as an entrenched negative group dynamic. It does not respect the individual. You can't write or perceive anything without perspective, of course perception matters, that doesn't mean you have to completely reduce the concept of good and evil to relatives, they are abstract constructs, but ones fundamentally based on the ideas of selfishness or selflessness, of how you yourself would wish to be treated by those around you. Religious or ideological wars between two kinds of 'right' usually end up perpetrating countless more kinds of 'wrong'. You can't change generations of social strictures by force of arms, and you should know better than to try. The answer to your hypothetical posit I guess is that you are both evil.

Yeah, that would depend on whether there actually was a water god, and whether he would drown everyone in a terrible storm of vengeance if not appeased. Religion can be a negative group dynamic, there are plenty of examples of this, I think you have to decide whether the religion is inherently humanistic and respecting of both individual and group at the same time. There aren't that many world religions that live up to that maxim, Christianity is homophobic, almost any religion is dismissive of other religions, etc. If forced to pick one, I would probably go with Buddhism, because of it's traditional acceptance of many and diverse sects,and traditional Japanese Kami worship, because of its acceptance of other gods.

Acting entirely selfish without concern for the group or, for the way you would be wish to be treated is considered evil, while doing something selfless, for the benefit of the group, even if such a group situation is entirely hypothetical would be good. I would argue that these broad definitions are universal, except maybe at a satanist convention.

You don't have to be Arnold to pull a trigger.

Get a proper cord mouse

I hate the new logitech drivers, during install it wants to install all kinds of datamining/spyware and toolbars, what the **** is that. Just unprofessional if you ask me, and 1 time out of 10 the control applet just fails load on startup. It also autoinstalls in the task bar. Certain programs are task bar worthy, and others are just not, I don't want 20 things down there giving me stress and popping up update windows. Get one with a cord, cordless is for laptops they can't compete at all when it comes to gaming, I still have a microsoft optical I bought over 6 years ago, opticals usually last forever, if the resolution is decent you won't need to buy another one untill the buttons break or get so loaded up with gunk they stick to their contact points.

What exactly is Sweden fighting in Africa ?

It's a pen with mouse buttons on you move across a magnetised surface to enable you to draw on the screen. I take it there is something in the makeup of the toolset that makes this desirerable. Other than that you would use it for art programs.

For the record though, I agree that being polite is a win-win proposition, it feels good, and you may be rewarded.

My conclusion is that you are getting to that age where everything used to be better, more refined and possessed of greater worth than what is now. Don't worry, it's a perfectly natural progression, like the one from wide eyed idealist, to shriveled up conservative.

I prefer sneaking around undercover, and then invariably being detected and having to run and gun my way out of there, like hitman. I don't want the game to be over just because I got discovered.