Smiles,

I favor private property ownership, but I dislike having large, powerful entities who 'ultimate decision makers' follow the ethics implied by the question "Whats in the best interest of the share holders?".

I wonder what the world would be like if corporations were tied to indvidiuals from beginning to end - with the individual being ultimately responsible (liable even) for the companies activities. What if it was simply impossible for corporations to live for hundreds of years? What if a company could not shake off the consequence of 'bad actions' (such as public dis-approval) simply by changing ownership, or changing their branding?

I realize that fitting these ideas into 'how things are' immediately creates impossibilities... thats where greater flexibility of mind comes into play - what if we had started off on very different directions with capitalism two or three hundred years ago, leading to a world in which the previous ideas might work?

My life would have been very different if I had children, but I don't regret having none. (I think I had a lot in my past lives.) LOL

I'm too old and too poor to adopt.

I don't want followers. I don't have a clue where I am going.

One of the reasons I did not have any children is because I just did not feel qualified for the job of raising them.

Then by the time I felt qualified, I was too old.

Another reason is that I interviewed women with children and 8 out of 10 of them said they loved their children but if they had it to do over again they would not have had children.

I find this interesting.

You do realize that Japan and the European Union import more products from China than the US, correct?

I think if we decided one day to stop importing from China we could survive without their crappy knock off goods.

Now I have a question for you.

How do you feel about your countries dependence on Russia for 44% of its natural gas? Not much you can do about that If they decide to turn off the spigot, is there? I am sure the Russians would never exploit that, would they?

We all know the great relationship Germany and Russia have developed over the last 100 years.

Disturbing indeed...

My post was about epistemology, not religion. There is a difference. You haven't understood my point, I think you are jumping to conclusions based on what you THINK my point is. My point is that truth exists, therefore a statement like "Jesus is whatever each individual wants him to be." is nonsense.

Could you show me where in the post that I said that?

I'm not stating what the truth is, but I will and you already know what I'll say. What I'm saying is that truth exists and shouldn't be ignored.

I'm sorry, you didn't understand my meaning.

Yes, lots of people believe different things about Jesus. Those are just beliefs.

My point is that there is an absolute truth. Maybe it's not even known. But there is an absolute truth. So you can believe whatever you want about Jesus, but there is a truth. I believe that the truth can be known, but that's another subject. My point is that "Jesus is whatever each individual wants him to be." is a fallacious statement, because a truth does exist and belief does not make truth.

Assuming there is no absolute truth. But there is absolute truths, therefore the truth of Jesus' existence and purpose must also have an absolute truth. Jesus can't be "whatever", therefore he must be an "is". "Jesus is real" or "Jesus is fake", both cannot be truth.

unfortunetly those individuals form armies to force it to work for them

If that's the way it actually worked out in practice it would be great.

Unfortunately that's not how it ends up working out. It can become quite hostile and a basis for extreme bigotry.

Even when I used to be a Christian I found myself defending Jesus from the "Christians" who used him as an excuse to judge and bully other people.

I was bullied myself by Christians simply because I didn't interpret Jesus as a monster.

Try telling a Christian that you're not a sinner and see how that goes over. Yes according to the Bible Jesus washed away our sins.

I guess they didn't believe that part.

I think the reason that most decent people find Jesus attractive in the first place is precisely because he denounced the old teachings of Yahweh. People didn't like the idea of having to stone sinners to death.

There's the parable of Jesus at the well telling people who are without sin to cast the first stone. Suppose I was there and stood up and told Jesus that I am without sin and then asked him if HE wants me to throw a stone at the woman.

After all, who's idea was it to stone sinners to death in the first place?

Supposedly that was a commandment from God. So does God want us to stone sinners to death or not?

It's stupid.

You have a god commanding us to stone sinners to death and then turning around and acting like it was our frigg'in idea in the first place.

I don't want to stone anyone to death. So does God want us to stone people to death or not?

Yahweh says YES.

Jesus says NO.

Sounds like two entirely different opinions to me. A God that can't even make up his mind?

The New Testament tries to make out like it's the mob's idea to stone the sinners to death. But that was supposed to be God's directive! The whole story is an oxymoron.

A God that teaches people to behave in such a manner and then acts like it was their idea!

And then he has the audacity to say that he has not come to change the laws and that not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from law?

There's something horribly wrong with the whole story if you ask me.

I think Jesus just tried to teach people some civility in spite of their horrible religion and ended up being crucified for it. Then later they used him as a dead patsy to prop it back up again by writing the so-called 'gospels' that clearly contain fabrications as well as outright made-up lies.

The book clearly contains lies. There can be no doubt about that whatsoever. Matthew and Luke told totally different accounts of what happened to Judas. One claims he toss the money down in the temple and went off and hanged himself, the other one claims that Judas accepted the money, bought a field, and died from a fall.

Somebody is making things up! These authors clearly can't be trusted to know what they are talking about. They lie.

The book is clearly not the infalliable word of any God.

Sorry, but it's right there in the doctrine.

Hmmmmm. Germans came to Texas and invented the Chicken Fried Steak.