Drea

really? Then what makes a Christian believe? What is the point of not "sinning"? If anyone can get into heaven, what would be the point of having a religion? You mean those poor people have been squelching their "earthly desires" for no reason?! Yippee! I get to go to heaven too /kidding LOL I have read numerous books on Jesus. As I was a JW at one time, I have a copy of the King James bible... besides being an inacurrate account of history I thought it was about teaching people what to do and what not to do in order to get into heaven. Anyhoo... the books I've read say that Jesus was a man and I can believe that. He was a good man who tried very hard to get the people of his era to accept one another (be tolerant), etc. He did say in plain Hebrew (I read the english translated version) "do not look to the heavens for the Kingdom of God is within you". Yes, the ability to be at "peace", tolerance, etc is in all of us. It does not come from (nor does one go to) an outside source. It wasn't until much later that people began to say he was not human.

But Oleg, who is anyone to say they are wrong? Religion is impossible to prove or disprove. Many Christian televangelists bilk money out of poor old people, yet there they are, operating within the law. My aunt became a JW. They "encouraged" her to "ignore" her non-JW family members, but she doesn't listen, we still visit her and she still loves being a member of the Kingdom Hall. One person's cult is another persons saving grace I guess. I prefer to stay out of religion alltogether... although I almost became converted because of the song "Christmas Shoes"... what a sad song... ".... if mamma meets Jessssuuuss tonight". I cried my eyes out on the way home. Heartless sinning heathen that I am.

This bears repeating: Note that I did not write it...

SO the suicide bomber who is promised 72 virgins is NOT killing himself and others for his belief? He is doing it for the "power"? I pity some people, those who are brainwashed by a nutty notion that there is a life after this one. While leaders may go to war because of "power" they brainwash the citizens into fighting for them under "religious pretenses". Would those people kill themselves if not for the promise of a better life after they die? Would they still be so willing to die if there were no promise? Of course not. If we know we only have 80 or so years to live and there is nothing to look forward to after death, we are much more likely to want to live the whole 80 years IMO.

Perhaps it's just god's way of weeding out the weak. Here we are, all modern medicine, saving those who should not be saved. If god means a person to die, who are we to try and save them? Asthma used to be a death sentence for those who had severe cases. Perhaps we are messing with god's plan for these people? Maybe there is a special place that they are supposed to go and we are stopping them from getting there by giving them inhalers? Secure your place in heaven! Let the sick die -- if god gives them a sickness we should let it run its course. We should not interfere with god's plans!

I lack a belief in an entity. As far as life after death.... I don't know what happens but I am not going to jump through some religious hoops "just in case". I hope there is something after death, but I have no faith that there will be. My mother had belief... but she always covered her butt (with god) by saying "god gave me a brain so he will understand my need for proof, my doubt". "Mummy I hit my sister, do I still get to go to heaven?" That is twisting a child into knots over something no one has any control over whatsoever. No, it is one's reaction to an outside source. Happiness and peace come only from within. No one can "give" you happiness. No one can take it away. It is a mindset. The peace they feel still comes from inside their brains. Just like the angry man that finds Jesus and says "Jesus makes me calm". He is wrong, Jesus doesn't make him calm, only he can do that, inside of his own head. I get immeasurable peace and happiness. When I sit back and look at my life, my son, my hubby, my experiences that have made me who I am... There are people out there that cannot "thank" themselves for this peace so they thank an outside source -- god. Because religion causes people to fight one another. They fight because they believe they are the holders of the "true" religion and all others are "false" religions. It is just stupid, this fighting over something no one can possibly know. Yet they do it. Every single day on this planet someone dies because of someone else's beliefs. Families are split apart because of "belief". Countries go to war because of "belief". People commit suicide and take others with them because of "belief". People get offended over little things because someone's opinion is an affront to their "beliefs". While quietly being religious is just fine by me. I have a real problem with those who try to "convert", "kill", or otherwise harm people for the unknowable. Now back to "Is Scientology Dangerous". Not any moreso than any other religion. If one wants to start up some religion, who are we to say they are wrong. Pehaps god has spoken to them directly and asked them to do so. We will never know.

I don't think smoking will ever have to be "banned" completely. Eventually there will be no more people who smoke and the tobacco companies will have to diversify. I am a smoker but I do expect I will have to quit at some point. It just po's me that parents can feed their kids a steady diet of kd, but are vilified if the kid walks through a waft of smoke. What do the gestapo do to parents when a diesel drives by their child? What about all those poor kids who live where there is no automobile aircare? How much pollution does a child suck in while waiting on the side of the road for the schoolbus? Indeed, someone had mentioned that childhood asthma rates are up while smoking has decreased. Perhaps we should just put kids in bubbles until they reach adulthood?

Lack of belief is not a belief in of itself. We know if you (general you not specific you) break the law there are consequences that can be measured. Fines, jail time, etc. If one refuses to obey religious law there is no discernable, knowable consequence. Peace and happiness comes from within your own self. No outside source can "give" you happiness or peace. Many atheists feel at peace with themselves. I am refuting the fact that believers have no proof for their claims, yet base life decisions on these unsubstantiated claims.

If you have ever said to your child "You get to go to heaven if..." then you are twisting him into knots to try to please an unpleasable, unknowable, unproven entity. Maybe not YOU personally, but "you" in the general sense. I am not trying to attack you so no need to go into defense mode AW.

What about the people who drive standards? Ack all this time they have been illegally taking their right hand OFF the wheel to shift. OMG! /sarcam I smoke when I drive. If one cannot smoke and drive, one needs driving lessons. As for having the kid in the car. I say I am glad I no longer have little kids. Next "they" will be coming into our homes. So next time I see a parent feeding their kids McDonald's I am going to phone social services. They are directly putting the health of their child at risk by letting them eat that garbage. Also the grocery store. Parents should have identifing tattooes so we can stop them from purchasing food items (twinkies etc) that may be detrimental to their children. Only those adults with no children or grandchildren should be allowed to purchase anything but milk and fresh vegetables. /not sarcasm.

Ah yes AW, but I do not twist myself or my child in knots trying to "please" some unknown entity that may or may not be real.

My teenage kid says he's 52 kilos... the youth use metric. I was in elementary when we converted so I still think in pounds, but use kilometres for distance. Tiny engine, tiny amount of cc's = tiny power. Big engine, lots of cc's = big power. Easy huh! My husband runs a Planer... his calipers are in millimeters. He uses millimeters because fractions of inches are not accurate enough. Weight is measured in grams, not millileters, which measure volume. It is waaaay easier to measure distance with metric. 1.5 kilometers is exactly 1500 meters. How many yards (quickly) is a mile and a half? Ha ah ha. More modern? Efficiency is modern. Cutting a thing down to the smallest increment of a standard ruler is mudh less accurate than cutting a thing down to the smallest increment on a metric ruler. We got 2 mm of rain today -- how much is that in inches? Would it even register on the "inch" scale? in the grocery store the other day I felt for this old couple at the service desk. They had a bag of cashews and the man says "But this is $10!, how come so much -- it says 99 cents per 100 grams." "But you have 1 kilograms of nuts sir" says the cashier... he and his wife went aside to discuss it, poor old souls, they could not wrap their brains around the fact that 99 cents would buy 100 grams and that the bag they held had 10x that much. They kept the bag of cashews. 1 Kg of cashews is alot of nuts. But The world has moved on. And although I felt for these folks I in no way would ever want to go back to the inefficient imperial system. Metric temperature makes more sense too. Water freezing at 0. Makes way more sense than water freezing at 32.

"The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history." That is THE most sensible paragraph of words strung together I have ever had the pleasure to copy and paste. Thanks Lazarus.

I will wait while you undo yourself from the knot you twisted yourself into... Ready?.... Ok, good. you got that from what I typed? Here, I will put it in easier terms for you: Jews and Christians already run the country, we all know this. Harper, etc all love to trot out "good ol god and jesus". We call ourselves (I don't but many do) a Christian country. Jews run the finances, Christians run the rest. And most people are all pretty much ok with this arrangement. Ok, are we still on the same page? Good. Muslims (according the rightwing) are trying to implement their laws and religious teachings. Still with me? People fear the muslims and don't want them implementing their crap in this country. Include me in that group! I did not defend muslims by saing they are "targeted' for NO REASON, and should be absolved of these accusations, of which only Christians and Jews can be implicated. These are your words, not mine. Again... Jews and Christians have already done it (inflitrated gov't, etc) and the Muslims haven't yet but want to. In my opinion -- really everyone on the board ought to know this about me by now -- all religion should be eradicated from the earth. Anyone who believes in an unknowable entity for the purpose of securing a "place" after they die is living in a fantasy world, a fictional fantasy world that cannot be proven. Doughheads (pun intended), FSM is a joke. It is not meant to actually be believed in. Sheesh.

Until proven otherwise, yes. Logic dictates that proof be required for everything. Why does this not include religion? AW, no one knows what happens after a person dies. Could be nothingness, could be we become "engery" balls, could be floating on clouds looking down on earth. COULD BE does not constitute fact. Not one single human being has come back from the dead to tell us what happens. Ever. So yes, if you believe that we go to "heaven" or "hell" you are believing fiction as there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that there is an "afterlife" in "god's kingdom". The other morning I got up too early and 100 Huntley Street was just ending "Secure your place in heaven, pray to Jesus" was what the fellow was saying. He has no proof of this, he has no proof that anyone (good, bad or ugly) will go anywhere after they die. It is all conjecture, all made-up, all fiction.

Thanks Buffycat! The noodler would only be allowed if his noodly appendages were made into inocuous bow tie pasta! Poor Germans. Because of Hitler they have no freedom. Because of what he did to the Jews (and gays, and gypsies and mentally handicapped people... these others seem to rarely get a mention....) Because of this, they do not allow free speech of any kind, there is no longer a discenting voice allowed. Stalin killed many many more yet Russians are not vilfied in the same manner (other manners, commie etc. but never on the same "level" as Hitler-the-Jew-killer). Two generations of Germans have now grown up with the stain of Hitler on their hands so they are ultrasensitive. "We are not like the Germans of that era! We will not tolerate *this* or *that*... isn't that exactly what Hitler did? Demand compliance and intolerance? Hmmm seems they are decending back to fascism (intolerance of differences) by disallowing "free speech". By the way, I watched Naomi Wolf the other night... about what all countries decending in facsim have in common... Check it out. Video Rightwingers ---> don't watch this video! Avoid it at all costs as it will only cause your blood pressure to rise to dangerous levels. Not because you will believe what Ms. Wolf says, but because you will be sooo angry that she is right.

...your point? Haven't Christians and Jews already done this? (brainwashing, blackmail, infliltrating gov't) Isn't the fear of Muslims doing this the very thing that the rightwing gets up in arms 98% of the time? No religion is "better" than another. If we "allow" one religion, we are obligated to "allow" all others. No matter how it disgusts us, if people want to follow who are we to say they are wrong. They is no possible way to disprove a religion. By their very nature, religions are unproveable and therefore all of them are suspect in my opinion -- give me proof! give me facts! give me logic! I would have made a good Vulcan.... too bad no one can prove the existence of Vulcans. It (religion) is all fiction (like Vulcans) made up in someone's mind. Some religions were fiction over 2000 years ago, some are brand new fiction. But the fact remains that they are fiction .

... and an unknowable entity supposedly created human beings out of dirt and blood... your point? The notion of a "god" in the sky watching over our every move is no more "realistic" than aliens taking over the earth. Who are you (or me) to say they are wrong. One cannot disprove the existence of god or aliens. Trust me, I have been trying to disprove the "god" notion for a long time. Can't be done. Those who want to believe in a skydaddy will do so no matter how illogical it is. Those who believe in aliens will do so no matter how illogical. Scientologists are just as nutty as Christians who are just as nutty as Muslims who are just as nutty as Jews who are just as nutty as Buddists who are just as nutty as Scientologists... LOL

so what? If crazy people (Tom Cruise) want to give their money to Scientology who are we to say it is "wrong". Just like the little old lady who gives over her life savings to a televangelist. He is a bastard, but he CAN dupe people out of their money legally. If he can do this why can't Scientologists? There is no proof that Scientology is wrong just as there is no proof that nutty televangelists are wrong, so why the discrepancy? Why is it ok for some, but not for others? ....tithing... 10% of one's income isn't it? I do not know as I have not stepped foot inside a church for a long long time.

So they take people's money -- how is that different from any other religion? If people want to pay money to be part of some cult who are we to say they cannot. Millions of people give money to Falwell type cults everyday -- yet no one is asking if it's a "real" religion. Keep your money -- eradicate religion!

Drove up home (Cariboo) this summer and was dismayed at the amount of red trees. We need a really long cold snap. The biggest fear is if we have a very dry summer all those beetle-trees will go up like tinder.

When did I say anything about our sovereignty being under threat? I pointed out that the two leaders in the video DENIED the fact that there is plans for a superhighway. They called it a conspiracy theory. Is it a conspiracy theory or not MDancer?

You folks said the NAFTA superhighway was a conspiracy theory cooked up by the feaky left wing. Now that it is found out to be the truth you twist and twist until you sound like you knew all along about this and never ever believed in was a conspiracy theory at all. When the truth comes out about 911 you will say "I knew it all along, I knew those buildings were brought down by explosives". MDancer, Gawd I cannot believe you are a fellow Libran! Us Libra's live for fairness, equality and logic -- you live to twist facts so you will never have to admit a mistake. ...unless of course you lied about that too.

So Harper says it's a conspiracy -- Bush says it's a conspiracy -- Yet the Manitoba Throne Speech says it ain't. So what do you believe MDancer? Is it a conspiracy or not? Your heroes believe it is a conspiracy. They flatly denied it. So we are the tinfoil hat wearers? Is the Manitoba Legislature "tin foil hat" wearers too? This isn't really happening? There is no such thing as a NAFTA superhighway? What I am really looking for is for you rightwingers to admit that YOU WERE WRONG! Admit that you called it a conspiracy "theory" when in fact it is an actual conspiracy. Who has done this conspiring? Why none other than the leaders of our three countries.

FFS Watch the video. ... frig I simply cannot believe how obstinate you people are. WATCH THE VIDEO. It's not "fake" -- it is the MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBY THRONE SPEECH Unless of course you are a conspiracy theorist who believes that the Manitoba Legislature is a front. Booga booga. Jesus, I shake my head at the obstinance. "No damnit! We love Bush, we love America, we love money so all this video is is bull!"