Thanks invis I didn't know that, but it makes sense.

I believe that to be intellectually dishonest. I could believe in a god, but I couldn't believe in the God of the Bible. If I claimed to believe in the Christian God, but rejected the Bible, then I would be forced to cherry pick the scriptures and my decisions would be based only on my own preferences.

Why is that?

Free Speech and what not.

Einstein was cool and I visited his hometown in Ulm where a great many things are called after him. Einsteinstrasse - Einstein Street and they have a Einstein Volkshochschule - Einstein High School is a couple of things I can remember. It is only a little over 50 kilometers from where I was born.

Albert Einstein was not crazy, but very creative and imaginative.

Here is one of his quotes:


“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”

I'm not making the connection, you still have the right to free speech. The fact that you have the right to free speech doesn't mean the admins are required to give you a forum in which to exercise your right. You can create a blog and say just about anything you want, but there will probably be terms of usage. Or you can stand on a street corner and use your freedom of speech. Your freedom of speech doesn't infringe upon the property rights of others.

But does that really mean you can use your free speech to go and insult people, and when you have gotten your warning just go on and on. And when you have been finally banned for that come back under another name, and another, and another, to just do the same things over and over again?

Yes until the owners decide its cost effective to implement mac address -IP associated banning software.

I love banning people on my websites. The rules are clear and just.

I've been visiting these forums much less frequently lately and honestly don't know the extent of the insults. Perhaps, if those handing out the insults have been warned enough times, they should be banned (I don’t know). I don't actually feel my freedom of speech threatened. I think perhaps there's a bigger picture.

Isn't it each member of the community that chooses or doesn't choose to engage with someone who probably has nothing better to do than troll? Maybe the less we tangle with a troll or bully, the less inclined a “bully” will be to target anyone they once easily riled.

To flat-out ban someone seems like it could foster ideas that some of us are right while others are wrong, which can spur an increasing divisiveness. This can have an over-all alienating effect. When it becomes obvious that someone is up to familiar shenanigans, why can't we just call them on it and let it go?

IMO, polarization leads to greater inequality.

Ahhhh... What's the point?

Just another one of those dang-stankin', sniveling, pinko, bleeding hearts, talkin' to myself.

Don't worry splendidlife. I always talk to myself

Gosh, robotic geocide sounds so 'reasonable' when you explain it _that_ way. A merciful God Machine grinding defenseless children to powder beneath its wheels for the sins of their fathers. All for their own good.

Not.

Does "I was just following orders" have any historic significance to you? At least Ghengis Khan spared cities that didn't offer resistance.

Oh, and if an omnipotent God could supply manna from the heavens to keep the children of believers from starvation, if Jesus, presumably sitting at the right hand of God while all this was going on, really loved All the Little Children of the World, he surely should have been able to have thought of something, don't you think?



Keep telling yourself that. Because when theology is the moral arbiter of last resort, a deaf ear will always be turned to its victims' screams and to those of the people who have the moral courage to stand up and say "Wait a damn minute. This is JUST WRONG no matter how many times you say it's God's Will".


"Those lacking an ability to empathize are capable of horrific crimes. They can't appreciate that their acts of convenience are the tragedies of their victims." -Eric Harry


-Kerry O.

You constantly lose perspective.

God either did those things or they didn't happen. If God did them, then that means that...God exists. If you accept that God exists, then the morality logic of Mere Christianity proves that God is good. Why would an evil god give you a conscience that tells you to do good? Hmmmm? You are so funny when you cherry pick and whine about anyone who looks at the bible as a whole.

There is no logic whatsoever in anything you just said spider.

Ah! The Chewbacca Defense.

And if you think my perspective on genocide is lost because it conflicts with your dogma, "Good riddance", I say. And as to the cherry picking accusation, "By its fruit the tree is known."

-Kerry O.

WOW!! Not everyone has a conscious that tells them to do good in this world, not everyone stops and thinks I shouldn't do this because isn't the right thing to do.

Coming from you, that is a compliment.

Poor Kerry, so angry...

You lose perspective (probably on purpose) because you talk about the scriptures as if God exists, but then you deny all of the scriptures that would exonerate God of wrong doing. It's called rationalization. You have a conclusion (God is evil) and you will only accept scriptures that support that conclusion. This is the sign of a sloppy thinker.

I'm sure that is true, but it is also misleading. Everyone (or at least almost everyone) had/has a conscience, the problem is that if one goes against ones conscience too much, then one's conscience becomes calloused and no longer warns of wrong doing.

I am sorry spidey, but I am christian and discerning behaviors you do not like, is quite different than brandishing your discerments to the public view. When pointing a finger in the the public, it is judging.....

Judgment (disambiguation)

A judgment is a balanced weighing up of evidence to form a decision or opinion.

Judgment or judgement may also refer to:

A legal judgment, a formal decision made by a court following a lawsuit.
A value judgment, a determination of something's worth or goodness, based upon a particular set of values or point of view.

But what you do is up to you, I see it a bit differently.....and because someone reads their lesson or interprets them differently from you does not make them athiest.

JMO

Einstein claimed he was an agnostic. In one of his work, he wrote:

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or hasa will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts.

I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

Judging him on the strength of this revelation, Einstein COULD have even been an atheist. I am not saying he is.

Until his death, Einstein maintained his belief of a God equated to the order and harmony in the universe or the natural laws that were gradually brought to light through deep research in science.

Steven Weinberg (1992), an American astrophysicist noted on Einstein's religious conviction

"But what possible difference does it make to anyone if we use the word "God" in place of "order" or "harmony," except perhaps to avoid the accusation of having no God?" Highly agreeable, and though Einstein's belief was glaringly at variance with most of us, still he deserved respect not only for his remarkable science but his being a product of his subtle personal opinions that we are perhaps incapable to comprehend.

What do you think Albert Einstein believed in since this somehow moved to religious studies now?