caroljane

Quite a story. Just imagine if that kid with the Obama prayer had been on the scene!

At least, I hope you will not take pleasure if Armageddon arrives. But as there will not be much pleasure for anyone then, I guess you should take it if you can. There are others on this forum, not to mention the Other Place, who will pretty much explode with glee watching the rubble from their aeries. They will hire all the world's surviving aircraft to skywrite across every inch of the celestial firmament: Told You So! Serves You Right! Brother You Asked For It, etc.

Tony, To take your last sentence first, I believe, though of course cannot prove, that human compassion existed long before any structures of reason and objective principles; before humans consciously reasoned, probably before they even talked; ever since, in fact, they became human as distinct from their primate cousins. I believe it will remain, as long as we remain human as we are now, until we evolve into a species in which the quality of compassion is no longer necessary. Your bleak determinist prophecy is powerful and sad, and of course I hope it is not the inevitable outcome of current conditions. I know you would take no pleasure in being proved right. When I spoke of black and white, I was not thinking of the alternative as grey. I was thinking of colour, living colour.

And ohyeah! almost forget. Bring a jug of wine incase He isn't up for doing the Cana thing again. He is real tired and jumpy lately, hope this nice evening with friends will relax Him. No clue where Judas is just now - he says he is trying to fix some contract with the Romans, like sure, we haven't seen a shekel coming in since he took up with Him. Oh, well. See you tonight.

That wasn't very nice Brant. But come to dinner anyway could you, we're a disciple short.

Brant, Moralist is all about "deserving." This is usually a negative or minus in his value scale, so Utopia will be Dystopia with lots of punishment cells.

lol just read the last page and I think it is game set and match to me. Just my opinion of course

Sure. WHY?

Carol, That's an opinion, I suppose. Michael Yes, it is an opinion. And it is one I hold not through the various kalaedioscopes of the masters of spin and pr, but through the evidence of my own senses and mind, however the repetitive geniuses of persuasion have tried to manipulate them.

Baal, Eighty years ago today occurred the worst riot in Toronto history. At a baseball game between a Jewish team and a Christian team, a pro-Nazi group raised a swatstika, and mayhem ensued. Miraculously, no one was killed. The police who responded were entirely unable to contain the violence. Today there was a game there in memoriam, between a Jewish team and a nondenominational team, at the Christie Pits on the exact spot where the blood was shed. One of the spectators who was there in 1933, age 7, is still alive and was an honoured guest. Thank God and Yahweh,; for lifelong learning.

This seems to be a real problem for Glenn Beck but \I do not see why it should bother atheists.

Michael, I think you are overthinking and overanalyzing things. "There is nothing new under the sun" and spins will not make anything newer, or more impactful, than circumstances allow.

I too am very interested in this. As a Sunday school graduate cum laude and assiduous bible realer, I have come to wonder more and more about the individuals who may or may not have been his cousin John. Having learned of the amazing intellectual mix of magicians, Hellenist logic choppers, aspiring Messiahs and raving loonies who competed in the Galilean market, I always want to know more. I am one of those truly disgusting people,, who would yes, invite Jesus to my fantasy dinner party, along with WSS and Richard III and Socrates and Aeschylus, so they could argue, and Marlowe and Shakespeare, to find out if he was really a spy.. And worse people than that even, and better ones.

.. is moral Hemigway -

Oh for heavensake Michael, I looked up Overrverton Window, There was nothing new or enlightening there at all.

O Adam, I hope I am correct too. You are doing such good, important work. This is offtopic but I will mention a new friend I have made, he is a resident of a grouphome and learning to control his anger impulses when he is called "Retard". That word really set him off. H e has extreme OCHD and stutters when he talks because his thoughts outstrip his speech abilities. He likes plants so I have made a value exchange with him, he weeds my tomato bed and can eat tomatoes and sit on my deck. We talk most evenings, and he tells me how he is learning to control his anger. His speech trips over itself and I often can't understand what he is saying. I think I undertand who he is however. Hope so anyway.

There are clues not dreamed of in your philosophy, Horace

What in the world does it have to do with mathematics? We are talking about fluid human situations without fixed variables here. Get a grip.

And sez me right

Er, quite. Analogies are freaking useless in most real life situations, including the one you reference.

Adam, those examples rend my heart. And they will slowly, so slowly, become part of the precedents that determine the future, reactive laws.

Really Michael, was this worth posting? I have close relatives who pray for parking spaces and dresses to go on sale, and get messages from l the Lord on regular bases, including instructions for me. They are lovely sincere people. What is the point here?

One obstacle to enlightened evolution of the organized labor movement, at least in the United States, is that social interest group leaders - and labor leaders in particular - justify their own existence (and large salaries) through the prolongation of intense and highly visible conflict. When everyone is getting along swimmingly in a workplace, it isn't obvious why the workers are paying $500-1000 every year for union representation from a gang of tattoo-ed, potty-mouthed ex-Teamsters. Thus, it's easy to understand why unions are in the habit of "drumming up" controversy during amiable periods by engaging in yelling-matches, pickets, grievance-mongering, and incendiary e-mail blasts to convince their members they're fighting the good fight on their behalf against the Great Satan of management. I work for some of the nicest, most reasonable people in management I've ever met, and our union spews venom at them constantly on the basis that they are supposedly racist, classist, sexist, or what have you, none of which is even remotely accurate. Since union membership is voluntary here, most of their members have fled (thank goodness I don't have to pay those people), but they still have their hardcore members from the good old days who share a cult-like devotion to their antagonist status. I'm reminded of the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy game, where if your character dies, you can begin climbing up a new class tree from the depths of the underworld. So it is with the union in my workplace - once a worker is blackballed due to gross incompetence or unprofessional behavior, they start over and advance up the union ladder by becoming the the most vicious hellraiser they can. Law firms have unions??? Or do you work in the legal department of a company. Not to worry, they will soon be all gone. They do sound kind of colourful though, light relief as it were.

Analogies in themselves are perilous. I personally would not devise one in which two groups of humans existed only in order to exterminate each other,

(Personal to whoever is holding our syrup to ransom like we don't know who you are) If you knew how the breakfast eaters of Riviere du Loup are suffering, not to mention the Cheese Monks of Oka who are fasting in sympathy, you would not be acting in the selfish way you are doing. Do the right thing. Anonyme'