the janitor

There's plenty of evidence for Christianity. The New Testament is the most verifiable text in ancient history. You will not find another historical text from the same time period with more documentation (multiple texts, lines of transmission, witnesses to the fact). The evidence for God is scientific. Every created thing must have a first cause. Science concurs that the Universe had a beginning. Nothing has ever been observed to cause itself to exist. Nothing. God does not need a creator because God never had a beginning. A beginning itself is a created thing.

I do. There is something about her that's really compelling. I mean any way you look at it, she's an improvement on Ralph Klein and Ed Stelmach.

I know Clark's election was a squeaker. Point being that Reford, Clark, Palin all DID get elected. Next time around Danielle Smith probably will. It's only AFTER they've been in office and messed up people vote against them.

It's no longer 1933. The threat is completely different and the response must be also. Besides, I'm not saying completely do away with the CF, but we'd have a problem say with fighting the Battle of the Atlantic again for instance. Despite everything spent on defence we haven't had decent maritime helicopters for a couple of decades. Despite what we spend the government still can't manage to get the equipment th CF needs. Think I'd rather not commit them to combat again any time soon.

Personally, I find Alison Redford lovely. I'm sure I'm not alone. I don't agree with most of her policies. So the question is this. How often do we vote based on what we percieve is attractive rather than on a hard look at the issues? Do we vote for what we want to be true versus what actually is true. McLuhan once said that when the media want to present bad news they graph it in curves. When they want to present good news, they wrap it in curves. (Something to that effect.) Is there a pattern? Danielle Smith, Christy Clark, Sarah Palin, And Alison Redford?

Just means the Vikings (like some other cultures) had a notion of something. It doesn't really prove or disprove anything I don't think. When trying to find the truth it's a simple matter of which version has the most evidential support.

Someone rising from the dead is about the coolest thing there is. When I was little I thought Thomas the Tank Engine was pretty cool. Still do. Only now I know it's a fairy tale. Norse mythology isn't based in historical fact. Christianity is.

There are similarities apparently between Jesus and Mythros. But anyone who actually looks into the evidence will find more differences than similarities. TThe life of Jesus is an accepted historical fact. The myth that his life was a re-telling of some other fable is absurd.

Totally different situation now. We aren't up against Nazi Germany. Even if we had all the material at the ready to defeat such an enemy we couldn't. We are in a different society. The West has no stomach for total warfare, even though it's the only warfare that's winable. Look at Vietnam...won every battle and still lost the whole dang thing. If we were up against something like Nazi Germany I'd support as big a military budget as economically possible. That's what it took to win. But we aren't, and an extra .5% GDP on defence isn't buying us any extra security. It really isn't.

.7% GDP has been the target for foreign development for years. Canada can afford it. .7% would give us a limited military but enough capability to do what we do now basically. I think more money spent on foreign aid would actually buy us more security than what we spend above that on defence (think someone posted about 1.2%). That extra .5% just goes South of the border at some point anyway. Consider: Canada has built/flown about 1100 fighter jets post-WW2. How many have acutally gone into combat? 48. Never more than 6 or 12 at a time and only for a period of a few months. We'd run out of spares with a deployment any longer than that. So spending a total of upwards 12 billion on fighter jets that never saw combat bought us security? Hardly. People always lament over the Avro Arrow being cancelled. It was a budget hog and it should have been cancelled. Perhaps sooner than it was. Nice looking plane but not a fighter, nothing more than a mission-specific interceptor for a threat that didn't exist. I have respect for the people that serve in the military (I did myself) and it should be well-equipped for it's size, but like the Avro Arrow, Canada has all along been spending billions on a threat that doesn't really exist. I think we did make some headway in Afghanistan. Hopefully we did. Because if we didn't, then we really didn't need to be there at all, not for as long as we did anyway. We sure didn't need to spend what we spent to be there. Keep in mind our security against a terrorist threat involves Coast Guard platforms, the RCMP, and Border Security Services as well as the military (and like it or not, the CF has the secondary role), and I wouldn't starve those department budgets to buy advanced fighter jets just because other countries want us to. If we really need to spend 1.2% on the CF okay fine. Let's spend that on foreign development too. Much of what is spent on foreign development comes back to Canada anyway.

Christaeofascist? What the hell is that?

Atheists are just bigots who don't believe in anything.

Given that Canada doesn't face any direct military threats, shouldn't Canada be spending .7% GDP on foreign aid (like we were supposed to do decades ago and some other nations already do) and cut back the military to the same amount (.7% GDP)? My logic is flawless.

For some reason I just don't trust Ignatieff. I get the feeling he sees his Russian heritage as his divine right to rule as some type of Canadian Tsar. I don't agree with everything the federal Tories do either, but I like Harper. I find most of the criticism leveled at him is sheer speculaltion and fantasy. It's easy to say he has some hidden agenda, but impossible to prove it.

I agree with you, poverty is a huge issue. Many homosexuals are standing up for marriage more than heterosexuals are, so in that sense a government can't justifiably allow hetrosexuals to get married but not homosexuals. But every society has the right to collectively decide which relationships it will sanction and which it will not. Its not a situation of either addressing society's sexual issues or ending poverty. It would be a very warped society that says a young girl must be given shelter, education, healthcare, food and clothing, but if she's being sodomized by her grandfather that isn't society's business. It's a much larger issue than just gay marriage or sexual acts between consenting adults.