Mister P-Mosh

I didn't follow directions and send a PM, but if nobody else offers I can probably do it. I'm not completely fluent, but my wife would be glad to help too.

I saw this article on ESPN's site and thought that you all would find it interesting. Here's some snippets to give you an idea of the story: I would like to think that given the opportunity, most young athletes would have done the same thing. Still, it was a great gesture, and I think that this is a lesson many pro athletes should learn from.

I was a minor in a CF&S class. Seriously though, I had already seen, heard, and known much more than that class taught me.

Congratulations Raf, and hopefully your wife and you can get some sleep quickly. With my daughter, she was mostly sleeping through the night after about a month, so while those days without sleep were hell, just know that there is an end to it, and to enjoy your son as a baby because he will change faster than you realize.

I have discovered who VPW ripped off his devil spirit ideas from. This person:

Works for me as well.

Basically that the ancient Israelites and Caananites believed in Asherah as the wife or consort of their god, and in the Gospel of St. Thomas (which is a biblical text that has been excluded from the "official" bible that the Counsel of Nicea agreed upon) quoted Jesus referring to God as his father and the Holy Spirit as his mother. She is mentioned in other ways in various gnostic texts too, and there are references to her in a negative way in I think Deuteronomy and one other book of the bible that I forgot. However, there are potential other references to her in Proverbs as "Lady Wisdom" that may shed some light on that topic from within the bible itself. Basically, if you really want to learn more about Asherah, your best bet is to talk to Jewish people. As you can see, Abigail is also aware of the recognition of Asherah. As an atheist, it's nothing more to me than understanding ancient religions and history. I don't care too much about it, but I was intrigued when I heard about it as one of the reasons I left TWI was because I found them to be too misogynistic. If I found evidence that their god had a wife that was also worshiped by the ancient Israelites, I could make some TWI-heads explode.

Upon looking at the historical record, I've come to the idea that the holy ghost might be a representation of Asherah, who the ancient Israelites believed was the wife of the god El and later the god YHWH, both of which are inspirations for the Christian god.

Protecting passwords is good, but in the majority of cases Facebook, MySpace, etc. accounts are hijacked via phishing. What happens is that someone sets up a site that looks like the login page of MySpace or whatever, then you either get an email or click on a link within someone else's profile or comment on the site, that asks you to log in. Since the URL is disguised in such a way that it makes you think it's MySpace, you don't think anything of it and type in your username and password. A lot of good browsers (e.g. Firefox) have some anti-phishing protection built in, but the best bet to stay safe is to just not type in your credentials on any site that you didn't type in the URL by hand or from your bookmarks. If you do use these sites and get an email telling you to click on the link to see something, just type in the URL yourself on your browser and there is always a way to see what you are being notified about from the site itself rather than the email.

I have a pretty good salsa recipe, here it is from memory so there may be some things slightly off: Ingredients: 8oz (about 4) of fresh tomatillo tomatoes 3 garlic cloves (I think they are called cloves, the little things you break off of garlic) 2 canned chipotle en adobo peppers (two peppers, not two cans) salt 1/4 cup water 1) Cut the tomatillos in half and roast them and the garlic on a non-stick skillet, about four minutes then flip them over for about four more minutes on medium high heat. 2) Throw the roasted tomatillos and garlic into a blender, along with the two chipotle peppers and 1/4 cup of water, and blend it into a puree. 3) Put it into a container, mix in salt to taste. If it's too thick, add more water. This is sort of my standard salsa recipe for putting on steak. It's not really designed for chips as it is more like a hot sauce than a chunky pico de gallo type salsa. It is spicy, but really delicious and has a great tangy, smoky flavor.

There's no reason to be ashamed now, and I think you gave an apt description of what everyone felt. I do think that everyone that stayed quiet through those times believed as you did. In a sense, we were all brainwashed to put obeying leadership above our own morals and our own common sense. Since I left on my own, I don't condemn everyone so much, but I imagine if I had been kicked out of TWI, I would feel a lot of anger and bitterness towards my supposed fellow-believers and friends that allowed it to happen.

I think in Bolshevik's post in the entire context, it was more that people should have spoken up, and felt relief that it wasn't them, more than being happy that others were being yelled at. Additionally, the comparison to the Nazis seems to have been more about standing up for others who were having their faces melted by leadership. How many of us sat there and saw confrontations between egotistical way corpse and joe believer and did nothing, or worse, backed up our "leadership." I was too young to really do anything, but I remember seeing adults being yelled at and basically M&A in the living room of my own house while my parents sat there doing nothing, and people that we were friends with and ate dinner with and hung out with were being yelled at for stupid nonsensical things by an area coordinator who saw devil spirits lurking behind every door. I remember looking around at the room full of adults, seeing even the children of the people being yelled at, there looking at what was happening and doing nothing. I remember one gentleman that we used to go hunting on his land and he helped us in many ways being M&A for making a smartass comment to the area coordinator, thinking he was joking with the guy. In the 90's, we learned never to question leaders, and to never open up and be too close to anyone else, or risk being M&A or having suspicion thrown on you based on some off the cuff remark with a "friend" or not having your house spotlessly clean at all times when a corps person might show up to visit.

Oakspear, there is an acronym that is relevant in this situation: YHBT In other words, You Have Been Trolled. WhiteDove is just trying to p*ss on any post concerning anything to do with Obama. Of course she is being ridiculous, and I'm sure she knows it. I also know she's not generally a troll, but is acting like one now. The best course of action is to just ignore posts like that, and maybe she will stop making ridiculous posts like that.

I know this isn't a forum for this type of thing, but I thought I'd post it here anyway as we have a diverse group of people and someone may have an answer. My current vehicle has a factory stereo that I can control using the buttons on the steering wheel. I want to replace the stereo, but have heard that I will most likely lose the ability to control things from the steering wheel. Has anyone here found after market stereos, specifically for Toyotas, that do work with the steering wheel controls? Thanks in advance for any answers.

I seem to recall a movie being made in 2004 that had a veteran killed in the Iraq war coming back from the grave to vote against Bush or something like that.

The Playmobil Homeland Security Checkpoint This toy is a good teaching tool to help your children grown up to be neo-fascist tools of a totalitarian state. Combine with the Nazi-bake oven and the jungle jihadi playset, and you'll have all the tools your child needs to learn to never question authority and to hate our eternal enemies.

We do have a problem with zombies in this state, so they were preparing for a real problem. If you'd like an example, you should see the movie, "Bubba Ho-Tep" about an ancient Egyptian mummy that gets lost in east Texas, and it's up to an elderly Elvis (who secretly switched places with someone else) and an elderly JFK (who was secretly turned into a black man) to fight the mummy and stop the murders of their friends in the run-down retirement home.

YID, The moment that happens, you'll see Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin cease to function as all the foreigners, yankees, and liberals leave the state. For example, I work at a natural gas company in Houston. I'd say that we are split about 50%/50% politically, although it is basically divided between management (mainly Republican) and workers (mainly Democratic). I don't think this state could survive if all that were left were upper management types and religious nuts.

For some reason the forum isn't letting me reply. Yes, it is a natural instinct. Caring for the young is natural, and likely an evolutionary trait. Many animals have the same trait. Also, I don't consider instincts to be an absolute thing. Yes, some men do rape children, and they don't have to leave this country to do it. There are many reasons, but in all cases they are mentally defective in some way. That doesn't mean that they can use that as an excuse, because there is no justification. Justifications and reasons are entirely different. I've seen child molesters on TV begging to be castrated because they can't control themselves. For them, there is clearly something wrong with them, and I don't think religion is going to help them. They should have enough self-control to not touch children, which is why they deserve to be severely punished when they do, but I don't think they can help but be sexually attracted to children. As to serving others, we do it for many reasons, but it's just basic pack instinct as far as I can tell. It's the same thing wolves do. We understand the value of human life because we understand the value our own, and thus value others. It's a natural process as far as I can tell. Thanks for keeping this civil too. I hope that I didn't seem too pushy here, but I wanted to very clearly argue my points of what I think. I don't discount your beliefs or your belief system for you. However, I don't feel that it is right for me, and while I don't want to try to convince that I am correct and that you should agree with me, it is in my interest to have you and other Christians understand my point of view even if you ultimately disagree. Anyway, this is my last post for now, I hope I didn't write too much stuff to where nobody can read it or reply.

Perhaps, but I view it as a form of bigotry, much like how black women are stereotyped as the "angry black women." Having been good friends with African-Americans, including women, I saw the bigotry they had to deal with every day, and how they are treated differently, which basically makes it happen for real. When someone is treated badly, they get angry, and if people ridicule or dismiss them, it just makes it worse. The same applies to atheists. We are usually treated badly by the public at large, and former president Bush (the dad, not the son) questioned whether athiests should even be allowed to be U.S. citizens. While I'm not one to make a big deal out of discrimination, I can see very clearly why so many atheists get angry. We are constantly told, especially by some Christians, that we are untrustworthy, evil, childish, delusional, etc. and we are not treated with respect. Note that I'm not accusing you of that here, just trying to explain why atheists get angry. It's sort of like being the only kid that doesn't believe in Santa Claus and the other kids pick on you as a result. We are more advanced, but that doesn't necessarily mean that basic emotions and instinctual values are not present in other animals. Watch how gorillas take care of orphaned baby gorillas that are a part of their troop. There is no real reason for them to do it if it isn't their baby, yet they do. Watch how elephants visit the bones of their dead family members and caress the skulls and such in remembrance. Animals do exhibit a lot of behavior that we find in ourselves like this, and a lot of our behaviors are not as advanced as we think. I'm not an expert in sociology, but a lot of what they have discovered makes it very easy for them to predict what people will do, just as we can predict animal behaviors. This is your opinion, but I still disagree with it. Perhaps religion explains it best for you, but it doesn't work for me and many others. For me it seems a huge stretch to try to put religious beliefs into a natural process that in my opinion, doesn't need the supernatural to function. They are arbitrary ideals and standards, and morals change. In the past it was considered morally acceptable for things like 40 year old men to marry 13 year old girls. Today we consider that morally reprehensible. In the past, it was considered immoral for women to show their ankles in public in our culture, now pretty much everyone is ok with it outside of some strict baptists and the Mennonites. In the past, slavery was considered to be morally acceptable, and even the bible talks about the relationships slaves should keep with their masters. Today we find slavery to be absolutely wrong. Morals change, and in some cultures, morals can be different. There are not really absolute morals and this is not a black and white world. Yes and no. Children have a more simplistic view of the world, but a lack of understanding, as well as a huge amount of selfishness. Kids don't want to share, generally. That is a learned behavior that is tied to a moral that we are not born with. Some things are known from birth as to right and wrong, but some things we have to learn. I was implying that the author you quoted seemed to believe that we can't affect things in our lives. I agree that we are free-will creatures as well, but I guess to me our thoughts are somewhat less important than our actions. For example, the tenth commandment states in part, "You shall not covet your neighbour’s house". If I like a friend's house better than mine, I don't consider that a sin. If I do something childish like vandalize his house or try to make him hate his house, that would be bad behavior on my part. However, having feelings is not wrong, in my opinion, it's just part of being human. I do see the difference, and that is why I respect the beliefs of others. You believe in Christianity, I am fine with that because like you said, you do it freely. My Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Wiccan, and other friends all have my respect as well because they freely choose to believe in these things. All I ask is to be given the same level of respect by them and by Christians, which is usually the case. I will continue in another post... What if the person is starving because they are a mass murderer on the run? What if you have to choose between feeding your family and feeding strangers? There are all sorts of other factors we could add that would change the outcome. It's nice to try to think in terms of black and white morality, but there are often gray areas. Here's a common scenario -- if you had to choose between the death of one of your children (or if you don't have any, pick another loved one) and the continent of Australia, who would you choose and why? The selflessly moral answer would be to choose the death of your child because you would be serving the greater good by saving the lives of millions of people. Personally, I would choose to save the life of my child because my daughter is more important to me than other people. If that is too extreme of an example, change the stakes -- why do we keep any of our income, own a house, go to the movies, buy more than staple foods, etc. when there are homeless, starving, suffering people in the world? Nobody truly takes care of others selflessly in that scenario. Political attempts to "spread the wealth" in that way and make everyone either suffer or gain together equally have failed. I don't understand exactly what you're getting at. Sure, almost everyone has that common sense, but it is an evolutionary natural trait. Those that don't have it are defective. However, seemingly good people can do great acts of evil as well. You should read up on Nazi Germany if you'd like to see some great examples of how "good" people do great evil. Nobody wants to be the bad guys, and nobody really thinks they are the bad guys. The terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 didn't do it because they were evil men that "hate our freedom." They viewed us as a threat, and used that as an excuse to murder thousands of us. From our perspective, they were evil men. From the perspective of those they represented, we are the evil ones. Since Christians and Muslims share the same god and the same commandment of "Thou shalt not kill" it requires either deluding oneself to consider it ok to commit acts of war and terrorism, or that most religious people merely pay lip service to those morals and don't live by them. I don't want to get too much into the political discussion though, so perhaps I should stop with this. I don't feel it is necessary, or even helpful, at least for me, to have religion as a point of reference for making moral decisions. While you may quote verses that contain good things that we consider to be moral today, I can find other verses that tell you to take naughty kids out to the wall outside the town for the elders to kill them. From my perspective, Christianity evolves, and Christians pick and choose what verses apply and which ones can be ignored. This changes over time, especially in protestant culture. Continuing in yet another post...

Thanks, and I'll give my opinion of it below. I never felt any emptiness by abandoning Christianity, in fact, I felt freedom. While in TWI or in any of the other churches I've been to, it all felt like nonsense to me. What the author is saying here is not based off of anything that I've heard, seen, or felt. Especially that leaving religion did not cause me to abandon any morals, although it did alter my morals in the sense that some things that I thought were "sin" before I no longer view as a bad thing. The author here tries to state indirectly that if morals exist, then one individual must define those morals. I disagree with those assumptions. If you, as a religious person, can temporarily ignore your belief in god, you can possibly come up with explanations for things like this. What the author says about "evolutionary ethics" are things that make sense, because the "morals" we have are just a fancy word for behaviors, which animals also have to a lesser degree. This doesn't make sense, as the author seems to indicate that people are unable to evaluate their own lives and direction. I disagree, and feel that I gained more control over my life as an atheist. I disagree with this too. Morality can be abstract in many ways, and it is highly subjective. For example, if you own a store and someone robs you to go buy drugs, we universally condemn that action as immoral. However, what if you own a store and a mother living in poverty steals some baby food from you to feed her starving infant, it is viewed as a morally grey area because her circumstances led her to do this or risk the death of her child. There are many factors, and in many cases morals are loose. I disagree, and think all people have a value, and that morals do not require a perspective of perfection. While we may not be able to always live according to our morals in practice, we usually can determine when we've crossed the line. We don't need any supernatural entities for that, just our own common sense. I can alter my surroundings to some degree, as can every living person. Sure, we aren't "sovereign over everything" but that doesn't bother me, as I've come to accept that the universe is a much bigger place than little old me. It's not a big deal. That is ridiculous. Our instincts alone tell us that mutilating babies for entertainment is wrong. There is no moral debate, not because of religion, but because it is against nature. Our brains, the result of millions of years of evolution, have caused us to develop a pack mentality much like wolves or monkeys. We have an interest in protecting our fellow species members because that means they will be more likely to protect us, which all occurs at a subconscious level. Sure, we all want to be individualistic too, but that is a result of our complex minds, which try to balance selfishness and altruism our entire lives. I've always found the argument that Christians make like this one to be fascinating. Think about it -- deep down, if you found out somehow that there was no god looking over your shoulder, would you suddenly be ok with murdering people or stealing? I don't think you would. Whether you believe that it occurred as the result of a god or gods making your brain this way, or whether you believe it was a natural process of evolution, all animals including mankind have a sense of "morals" embedded in who we are. We know right from wrong naturally, and those that don't are suffering from mental illness and labeled sociopaths. You have to distinguish the understanding of right and wrong from the practical implementation of it as well, as all of us do things we know are wrong, while finding ways to justify it in our own minds. I hope this helps you get some insight into my way of thinking about morals, although I think I spent more time arguing against the view of what you quoted rather than explaining my own view of things.

I would say that even then it falls within what you stated above. Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing, deity who lives outside of time and space create evil people to begin with? In particular, why would he create people who hurt others? Was it really necessary for VPW to have been created with the intent of raping women? Was it really necessary for "god" to create Hitler and the Nazis who killed millions of innocent people? What harm could that little girl in Florida have done to deserve having her parents (or whoever the murderers are) created with the goal of killing her? Seriously, what lesson could a dead newborn baby learn as her 15 year old mother flushes her down the toilet at her high school dance? The amount of death, suffering, and destruction in the world is a sign that either there is no god, or that he sees no value for us.

Keep in mind that much of this is because 1) during the fall of the Roman empire, most of the great libraries were destroyed that had documents predating the bible, and 2) once Christianity became a major religion, they banned and destroyed most if not all other books that they could find, including many Christian texts that didn't like up exactly with what the Christian rulers wanted taught.

I just got caught up with this, and I want to say other than the whole pagan thing, Oakspear speaks for me. I was going to respond to some of the comments and he stated what I would have said as good or better than I would have said it. This post is just to announce that someone else (e.g. me) agrees with him.

Just as a note, this started in Canada, and eventually came down to the U.S.