Oakspear

How will we ever survive without y'all? -->

Happy birthday Steve!

Happy Birthday. Don't ever change ExC: You came all the way over here just to say you don't have time to be over here? --> Say happy birthday to the man! Now...get back to fighting, we're depending on you ;)-->

house: My opinion is that all the fighting just indicates that we can think, and not just in lockstep with what "leadership" says.

Depends on your definition of "religion". I believe that a religion can be theistic or atheistic. Examples of an atheistic religion would be Taoism, which, as I understand it, has no divinities. Secular Humanism is considered a religion by many. IMHO a religion is characterized by a belief system that is not objectively evident, and may just be the result of wishful thinking, or the originators view of the world or cosmos. Just as a Christian cannot "prove" the rightness of Christianity, a Communist cannot objectively "prove" the tenets of his dogma. To be a Communist, one must suspend the use of one's objectivity and ignore the real world. In this sense, Communism is as much a religion as Islam, Christianity, or Buddhism. What throws a lot of people off is the devout Communist's rejection of "tradional" religion as well as his rabid atheism. Atheism means "without God", not without religion.

I doubt that lack of religion would have reduced the amount of war and bloodshed, nor would everybody sharing a relgion. Look at how the medievel European states warred, and they were all Christian. Religion seems to be just another excuse that people use to dominate their neighbors.

thanks def

I have been told by pagans of my acquaintance that they do not "give the bride away" at their handfastings. I suppose in other areas or with other religions it depends on the views of the couple getting married as much as anything

Wordwolf: Well reasoned & well stated...I still disagree with you, but see why you came to a different conclusion.

If making the statement causes Zix to ask that the bigotry be kept to himself, the obvious inference is that he is calling the statement bigotted, although he has not technically done so.That being said, I find the statement offensive and inflammatory as well.

I'll take the risk of looking your dog in the eye behind your back :D-->

How so?

Refiner: Wierwille thought that no modern Jews were descended from the biblical Jews. He misrepresented or misunderstood Koestler. WordWolf's explanation is plausible, but I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

Yeah TH, I realized it, but it was just my preference that I'd have liked to have seen it the other way. He did get his powers back pretty suddenly though, just before the car came crashing through the window his spider sense kicked in, as did his spider reflexes.

I have seen the information that Raf has mentioned, and agree with it. Koestler has been largely debunked. Koestler, despite what Wierwille said, did not write that all modern Jews are descended from the Khazars. He claimed that the Eastern European Jews, the most numerous were. This branch of modern Jewry is called the Ashkenazim. The second major branch of Jewry was called the Sephardim. These Jews were largly those who lived in Palestine, and around the Mediteranean. Many could trace their lineage to the Jews of medievel Spain and Portugal, and many held high positions in the Muslim Arab caliphates. They had their own language, Ladino, which was a Romance language influenced by Hebrew. Koestler recognized the cultural differences between the Ashenazim and the Sephardim and concluded that it was ethnically based. Wierwille and his stooge Martindale misread Koestler (or maybe deliberately misrepresented him) and taught that all modern Jews were descended from the Khazars. Koestler also did not claim, as Wierwille said, that Yiddish was related to the Khazar language, but understood properly that it was a branch of German with Hebrew, Polish and Russian influences and loan words. Wierwille and Martindale also made much of the supposed difference between the words "Jew" and "Judean", when both were corruptions of the original Hebrew word Yehudayim(?)

Don't forget that generally THE LORD is translated from YHWH, Yahweh (or Jehovah), and not from Adonai, the word for lord.

Def: I don't argue with your assertion that human life is being devalued, I take exception to your description of atheists in the armed services as an infection. Depsite our disagreements on most issues, I think you can understand why I might find that offensive. I'm not arguing that atheism is the moral high ground either. Theism does not guarantee life-affirming morals, nor does atheism by itself result in life-denying ethics. Atheists are not all in agreement with each other, just as all theists are not, even all Christians are not. Posting what one atheist-humanist thinks does not mean all of them think or feel that way. By the way...I'm not an atheist.

:D-->

Def, if you are implying that a member of our armed forces, who lays his life on the line, is an INFECTION because of his atheism, then I strongly disagree. If you are further implying that an atheist is "filled with human bile" simply by being atheistic, then you don't know what you are talking about. I do understand your belief that Christianity is the moral high ground, by definition, while disagreeing with that belief.

When I took PFAL in '78, it was also one class. Actually, the the Intermediate class that was filmed later was included in the $100 "donation" and scheduled as if they were one class. And in 1994 they ran the TIP session, as well as "The Day Jesus Christ Died" and maybe even "The Unforgiveable Sin" as a supplemental session about a month after the regular class

Well Zix, sometimes I forget that not every moviegoer has read the comics. --> Although I gotta say, the Osbornes have better hair in the movies than in the comics :P--> and those little houses that the Parkers and the Watsons lived in looked to be authentic Forest Hills, they looked a lot like the one my grandmother lived in. Another observation, although the movie ended on a more upbeat note than Spidey 1, the core of the Spider-Man comics is the tragic nature of Spider-Man: no matter how many happy endings there are, no matter how many villains are vanquished, no matter what good happens, there is always another disaster waiting to happen, another super bad guy come back from the dead. On the other hand, he never really gives up. In the comics he gets his college degree, he marries Mary Jane (wonder if that will make it into the movies?), he pushes through incredible odds, and still remains sane.

Well, yeah :o-->

Can you really get anything you want at her restauarant?

The opinions of CKnapp3 do not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of other skeptics and agnostics here at Grease Spot Cafe. :D-->

SPOILER ALERT - - - SPOILER ALERT - - - SPOILER ALERT I would have liked to have seen them not portray Peter as temporarily losing his spider powers, I think it would have made his decision to stop being Spider-Man more real. Other than that, I loved it! Who were you thinking of the three super villains Zix? I caught (obviously) Harry as the second Green Goblin, Dr. Connors as the Lizard...John Jameson as Man-Wolf? Or did I miss someone? The balance between the emotional and the action was just right, IMHO, and the special effects were great. I enjoyed the scene on the train where he had removed his mask and one of the commuters gasps and says "He's just a kid, he's not any older than my son" and several of the guys tell Doc Ock that he has to go through them to get to Spidey. Harry Osborne's obsession is portrayed well, as is his descent into insanity. They definitely stayed true to the spirit of the comics.