I second this...

Thanks Enderra. I learn more from discussions than debates, no doubt the knuckle headed anti-authoritarian in me. Besides, seems like the truth in this stuff is seldom all one thing or the other. I'll poke too.

Based on the mine/yours premise, I'd say yes, that scenario would be present regardless, unless all humans became either truly delivered or enlightened or whatever you want to call it.

Seems I remember reading that in some cultures though, whether any still exist or not, there is no concept of mine/yours when it comes to material things. Hard to imagine. I guess they would still differentiate between, say, my thoughts/your thoughts, though.

Anyhow, I think one of the ideas in Buddhism is that, without desire for and attachment to material things, no one can really take anything from you. You don't "have" anything.

These are ideals, I know. How do you see it?

Hi enderra. Yes, I'm familiar with the Precepts and what they entail. I view them in much the same way as I view The Ten Commandments, and do my best to follow them.

However, when one chooses to live by either or both, they are choosing to live within an imposed or external framework. My general point was that both Traditions promise that it is possible to eventually break out of this framework and into a place where The Precepts or The Commandments are kept without thought or effort.

I've found in my life that if i'm not careful (or mindful), my desire to adhere to rules as a means to an end can carry me away, and I wind up bogged down in process.

I hope this is a little clearer. At times, using words to discuss these things is like trying to peel a carrot with a hatchet, I find.

I might be the single largest market, but the market it place in whole is infinitely larger than that one state, so unless you got something to back up that I'm calling this total BS. If anything has more control it would have to be the bible belt and frankly I wouldn't even buy that.

Text book selection is not made on a federal basis it's made state by state and county by county, so wtf are you talking about?

I am not going to respond to posts concerning my argument, it would take to long. I will give reasons for my premises.


1. All designs imply a designer.
2. There is great design in the Universe.
3. Therefore, there must be a Great Designer


"God makes sense of the complex order in the universe. During the last 30 years, scientists have discovered that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a delicate and complex balance of initial conditions simply given in the Big Bang itself.  We now know that life–prohibiting universes are vastly more probable than any life–permitting universe like ours. How much more probable?
12. Well, the answer is that the chances that the universe should be life–permitting are so infinitesimal as to be incomprehensible and incalculable.  For example, Stephen Hawking has estimated that if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have re–collapsed into a hot fireball.{5}  P.C.W. Davies has calculated that the odds against the initial conditions being suitable for star formation (without which planets could not exist) is one followed by a thousand billion billion zeroes, at least.{6}  [He also] estimates that a change in the strength of gravity or of the weak force by only one part in 10 raised to the 100th power would have prevented a life–permitting universe.{7}  There are around 50 such constants and quantities present in the Big Bang which must be fine–tuned in this way if the universe is to permit life.  And it's not just each quantity which must be finely tuned; their ratios to each other must also be exquisitely finely tuned.  So improbability is multiplied by improbability by improbability until our minds are reeling in incomprehensible numbers.
13. There is no physical reason why these constants and quantities should posses the values they do.  The one–time agnostic physicist P.C. W. Davies comments, "Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact."{8} Similarly, Fred Hoyle remarks, "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super–intellect has monkeyed with physics."{9}  Robert Jastrow, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, calls this the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science.{10}
14. So, once again, the view that Christian theists have always held, that there is an intelligent Designer of the universe, seems to make much more sense than the atheistic interpretation that the universe, when it popped into being, uncaused, out of nothing, just happened to be, by chance, fine–tuned for intelligent life with an incomprehensible precision and delicacy."

The evidence for the supernatural is so overwhelming that the leading defender of atheism and intellectual philosopher, Tony Flew. For the past sixty years he has been the top defender of atheism, up there with the ranks of Bertrand Russel, has recently become a believer in the supernatural.

I answered it a couple posts up
I should have added I dont know if I will get one next year or not yet thats a whole year away

One good example.... war!
It is good for big business, bad for the people, destructive to the economy!

Defence spending! While good on its surface, there is more spent on agencies to spy on and prosecute "citizens" who are later released uncharged, than to protect our borders (the Patriot Act).

To use an unconstitutional tax on wages, and refunds from them when none should be paid, not a good example.

FEMA camps.... they know what they created and what to expect. Not about Emergency Management for natural catastrophy..... most are located on military bases with no public access.....inland.

I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, but I do have eyes and questions.

I've said before congress's "tax cuts" on the federal level will do nothing for me. As long as my Governer is raising every tax we allready have in this state and trying to create new ones to cover the 6 billion more in spending he wants in the next budget.

In my lovely city they are going to in stall accent lighting to beautify the freeway yet our DOT is broke and cant replace street lights that are burnd out. I could go on but its a waste of time.

so more wasteful spending is representation?

Read this interview enderra.

Straight from the horses, uh pirates mouth!