George Aar

Hey Belle, Instead of the Doggery-doo, how about just a cork and dab of super-glue?

Well, they say that if you put a thousand monkeys to work pecking at typewriters and gave them unlimited time, eventually one ot them would write WAR & PEACE. But what are the odds really? Well, I'm comfortable with "zero", about the same odds I'd give for the apologists' view of Wierwillism having any credence...

Well, now that you mention it, YES, that IS who I go out to eat with. Sorry...

Sheesh, Sudo, EVERYBODY knows what Asa Yolson sounds like, don't they? (everybody in my house does, anyway) BTW, did you know that the dance sequences in the "Al Jolson Story" were actually performed by Al hisself? Apparently, he though the steps too intricate for a schmuck like Parks to handle. Feh...

Which reminds me, the lion may lay down with the lamb, But the lamb probably isn't going to get much sleep

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying. It's been a long time since I read it, but my recollection of it is that it was, well, petty. Maybe it was more substantial in the time it was written? Dunno...

C'mon SirG, You can do better than that, can't you? I mean, first you try to dispell any crediblity in Dawkin's arguments with a simple wave of the hand and deeming them all simply "memes". Then, you stoop even lower and just start name-calling "Dawkins is a big pee-pee head!" How about addressing his actual arguments? Feh... ADan, Though I'm far from being a real student of Bertrand Russell, I've heard that his intellect suffered a great deal from his attempt at distilling all knowledge into a mathematical formula ("Pincipia Mathematica"), or whatever it was he was trying to do with that. I guess the monumental effort really took a toll on him and - to a very real extent - broke him. All the same, I've enjoyed a lot of his work. It's so refreshing to think without religious blinders being imposed.

"A Shining Molecule The hydrocarbon that we now call benzene was first isolated in 1825 by Michael Faraday from an oily film that deposited from the gas used for lighting. Faraday did some experiments, and discovered that the new compound had equal numbers of carbons and hydrogens, and so named it 'carbureted hydrogen'." Michael Faraday discovered benzene, Kekule', first posited on the structure of the benzene ring, some several decades after Faraday's discovery. A concept which he later revised after a good bit of thought and observation, IIRC ...

I would contend that it's been men (and yes, women too) who were vitally tuned in to their five senses that have pushed technology and science to the point where we can live in the manner that we do today in the Western World. It wasn't Bible students or theologians who developed the Bessemer process for refining steel, or reduced the manpower for agriculture from 30% to 1 or 2 %, or discovered penicillin or the polio vaccine. It was people utilizing the scientific method, paying close attention to exactly what their evil "five senses" were telling them. I think, had we depended solely on revelations from The Almighty and His Word over the centuries, we'd still be living in caves...

Something that just struck me, why don't we ever see Mrs. Neil Clark Warren? If this guy's such a hotshot matchmaker and all, it would be kinda ironic if he were single himself, wouldn't it?

As Jerry Seinfeld once sagely noted, A date is like a job interview that goes on all night.

Yeah, I think I'd rather eat a razor blade sandwich than go out on a date. And sorry Evan, maybe they're not "dominionist" (uh, what does that mean?), but Focus on the Family is creepy, as is their fearless leader.

I felt pretty much like Polar Bear, uh, until the wife walked out. I thought we had a great marriage, not a good one. What did I know? Obviously, not much. I think there tends to be a schism between the sexes that's just hard to bridge. We think differently. Men tend to think logically, pragmatically. Women tend to think - hell I don't know how they think. It just seems to be real f'ed up, that's all I know. I don't know of any marriages that I really envy now. A few that I thought were great, now are no more, so what does that say? And those that are surviving seem to do so in a really strained, stoic manner. Like they're taking their medicine, but not enjoying it all that much. So I've become more than a little disillusioned about the whole concept. I don't "Believe in Love" or any other storybook notions anymore. If two people can manage to live together and actually enjoy the arrangement over the long haul, I think they are incredibly fortunate. It certainly doesn't seem normal or even natural for that to be the result of any union. I've gotten to the point now where, when I hear a wedding announcement, all I can think of is what it's gonna be like in a few years when the two split up and hate each other's guts. Instead of wishing them well, I just worry that they're setting themselves up for major heartache. Weddings as the first stage of divorce. Maybe that's too cynical for y'all, but that's where I live currently...

I guess I live in a small town. I guess, because it's surrounded by suburbia, it gets kinda hard to tell where one town stops and another starts. But, what I've finally figured out about myself, is that I'm NOT a country kinda guy. I MUCH prefer highly urbanized areas like Tokyo or New York City to the "scenery" of the countryside. Let me live in a place where restaurants, markets, shops, nightclubs, theatres are all in walking distance (or serviced by a good, high-speed commuter train) and there's no lawns to mow, no animals to feed, gardens to tend or any ot that crap. Now if I could just sell my acreage in the country and find a nice condo in town...

I think you're barely scratching the surface when it comes to asking the hard "God" questions Dot. But, those are a start. The problem is that religion - despite what it's practitioners would have you believe, or even readily admit to themselves - is not primarily a logical pursuit, but rather an emotional one. Reason is not what's invoked to convert the unwashed heathen, but rather feelings, fears, longings, impressions, intuitions. Hence questions that could be handled in a logical manner - but call into question basic tenets of the faith - aren't answered openly and honestly but, almost universally get "spin-doctored" ( see your other two responses for example). I could ask (and have) questions like "How can an all-loving, all powerful God allow a baby to die?" Or, "If God is so loving and all knowing, why did he set things up in such a way that He's have to kill off his own son to save mankind?" And such like, and mostly what I've gotten is stuff like "Well God would have to do it like that or He wouldn't be a just God" and other meaningless drivel. I think if you really want to maintain a "Good, Christian lifestyle" you have to be willing to put reason and honest inquiry on a back burner - forever...

Oh GAWD, Can you imagine the poor, pathetic S.O.B., who has a "Public Ex" and has that video to show the "new" people? HA HA HA ha ha ha ha.... Really though, just LOOK at the colors and the cut and "style" (if you can call it that) of the outfits. Could any SANE person come up with that combination? It's really mind boggling how over-the-top awful it all is. The men look like overaged refugees from a H.S. production of "H.M.S. Pinafore". And the poor women! Cheezus Kriste! The one poor lady looks like that gawdawful brown skirt is swallowing her whole! And why the hell don't their blouses even match? Did they really think that was a good look, or were they being faithful stewards of God's money and buying their outfits at the Value Village? At any rate, it stands as stark, irrefutable testimony that anyone left within the confines of WayWorld is a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal. Lordy, it's beyond pathetic, WAAAAAYYY beyond...

Well, I've seen a few more snippets of it, but... I'm still not much impressed. Saw Burns on "The Daily Show" this past week, pitching the show, so I guess it must not be getting the ratings they were hoping for. The raison d'etre I heard Burn's make for this effort was that the veterans are all at the end of their lives now and are coming forth with the REAL story now, before they die. Maybe so. But the revelations I hear in the program "I killed people and felt really bad about it", or "We didn't take any prisoners when we were out in the jungles of New Guinea" hardly come as big news. Hell, I remember my Dad and a friend of his talking about the war and getting drunk and driving by a P.O.W. camp in the middle of the night with a .50 caliber machine gun going full out, and that was 40 years ago. I'm pretty sure the news and views of WWII have been pretty well plumbed by this point in time. Mostly I see similar footage to what's been on T.V. a gazillion times already and some old guys remembering that it was a really ugly time. Not sure that was enough reason to make the effort at this documentary.

Yeah, I remember it. It was the official kick-off point of all things space-related in pop culture for the next 8 or 10 years. In Seattle we still have the vestiges of that in the form of a restaurant downtown - the Space Needle. The main thing I remember about that time though, was all the paranoia about the Rooskies kicking our butts in the "space race", and how they were gonna take over the world through space-domination or some sort of vague threat like that. So we quicklike got our stuff together and joined in the race, (and started practicing getting under our desks and cover our eyes and ears in case they dropped the big one on our block). An odd time in history - sorta like now...

When did Doc start lying? Maybe when his lips started moving?

I think what often gets lost in the fog of MLM hype is that REAL commerce is the EXCHANGE of things. Money for goods, money for services, or possbily sevices for goods or goods for goods, or goods for services. At any rate REAL, tangible things exchange hands. So often the get-rich-quick schemes are terminally vague about what it even is that there company produces. You've got to ask yourself, "What is it that I'm bringing to the party?" That is, what are you actually contributing to the exchange that's adding value? It the answer is "not much" then what's to keep somebody else from doing your (minimal) part and simply cutting you out of the transaction? Nobody does real business by simply giving gobs of money (or the opportunity to make it) away for free. NOBODY...

I just finished viewing episode 1 (of what? a gazillion more?) of PBS's latest offering from their fair-haired boy Ken Burns - "The War". I gotta say, if that's all he's got, well, it was a wasted effort. I learned nothing new about WWII in the hours of sitting through it. Well, it isn't as if the whole cataclysmic event has been IGNORED for the last 60 years. I mean, we HAVE had a couple of things written and filmed about it before. It strikes me as a monumental ego-trip for Mr. Burns to think that he's the one who NEEDS to tell the REAL story to us, as only he can. When you get down to it, he's just picking out pieces of film and doing a few interviews and then splicing them together. Does it really take some sort of Da Vinci to be able to do that effectively? Well, there's no doubt MANY episodes left to go (remember "Baseball"? gawd, I thought it would never end), maybe it'll get better. Don't know how long I'll try to hold on this time. Am I being an anal-retentive jerk about all this? Maybe...

O.K., I'll start, 1.You STOLE three bibles and the guilt is finally getting to you (you sold them to support your "Little Kings" habit besides) 2. You spilled your familia on three bibles and didn't clean up (or apologize for) your mess 3. You brought 3 bibles to the ROA that WEREN'T King James Versions (gasp!).

Well, I find door to door "witnessing" to be the absolute pinnacle of rude behavior. Therefore, when and if somebody shleps up onto my porch to pitch me their god or their next Tupperware party or any other dubious product, the gloves come off. As a result, I haven't had a JW or any other type of pitchman darken my doorway in MANY years. BTW, if you really wanna keep the Dubs away, just let two words drop "disfellowshipped" and "apostate". They won't be back...

"When a young guy Drives by On a bike with a tie That's a Mormon" (sung to the tune of "That's Amore'") I don't see a heckofalot of difference between their attitude and that of most religious folk I know, regardless their faith. The exclusivity, the arrogance, the condescencion, and the dogged determination to stay that way, all seem de riguer for those with a strong belief based solely on mythology. I wouldn't feel anymore sorry for them than any other devoted church member. I am becoming increasingly wary of all of them, though...

Yeah, Sky, ditto what Garth said for me. And, my previous post was a quote. I think I identified it as such. Maybe I should have been more thorough in my attribution. Anyway, for the context of the "crusade" thingy, just read the whole article I quoted from, or not. But you are entirely correct, evolutionists are a bunch of worthless nazis and commies, I'm quite sure...