I, Pandora - Latest Comments

Re: Candy Crowley: Presidential Water Carrier

Ron — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:11:39 -0000

Candy Crowler,is definitely a "water-carrier" fo :Barry:!

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:13:00 -0000

As for Nazism, again, this was not an athiest movement by any stretch of the imagination. It was racial, plain and simple.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:11:48 -0000

Communism was not underpinned by ideas of atheism, communism WAS a religion to those leaders under Stalin. While millions and millions of people were slaughtered by Stalin, it was clearly not because of his athiest beliefs, it was because they stood in the way of his perfect ideal of a communist state. Typical right-wing-style statement on your end. Stalin was an athiest, he killed a lot of people, must be because they weren&#039t athiest. Spin all you want on that one, it just isn&#039t true my friend.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:22:08 -0000

As I stated in the comment, Nazism and Russian Communism were underpinned by the ideas and ideals of atheism.

Re: Why Jesus Would Not Vote For Obama

music2myear — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:17:46 -0000

Here the man of science and fact either takes something he&#039s heard or something he&#039s read and, either way, takes it out of context in order to make it fit his preconceived notions of how the world ought to work. Very scientific.

The consistent message of Christ was that people had to give up what it was that was that would take precedence over himself in their lives. Christ demands that he be the preeminent passion in the lives of his followers, and in the case of the rich young ruler, it was wealth that was in his way. It was not a contradiction in any sense of the word.
My recent post Music ‘Cuz I Feel Like It

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:22:09 -0000

Please explain to me further why you think Atheism is bloody? I can&#039t recall there ever being an uprising where Atheists drew swords or guns in the name of science and reason.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:19:28 -0000

It was religious arrogance that led to all of those mass murders. As for Israel committing genocide, the only time that happened was when King David united Israel as one. There is not a single other time in history when the Jews started a war or genocide. They did defend themselves time and time again, but have not since committed such atrocities. The current conflict is more UN-biased than the media will have us believe. Christianity repeatedly converted people by the sword.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:15:59 -0000

What makes you think I admit there is a god? Again, how else am I to discuss with you unless I phrase things as such?

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:14:57 -0000

I will not except your "facts" because they are not facts, they are merely words written by man. Science has evidence and mathematics to back it up, the bible has nothing but a corrupt corporate structure to back it up. You show me something besides a book and I&#039ll open my mind to the possibility that god and Jesus are real. The problem with bible-beaters is that their mind is so closed they look reason right in the face and still cannot accept it. It goes so far as to corrupt your political views as well. I bet you still think Obama is a socialist. Shit, he&#039s not even a true Democrat! He&#039s even further to the right than Clinton was let alone being a socialist. Open your eyes Matt, open them to reality.

Re: Why Jesus Would Not Vote For Obama

deirinberg — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:09:41 -0000

Yet Jesus tells people to give up their wealth to the needy and poor before they can find salvation. Yet another contradiction in the bible.

Re: Why Jesus Would Not Vote For Obama

music2myear — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:13:37 -0000

All that may be true except for the biblical basis for private property, which is the first and best defense against Socialism and all its ills.
My recent post Loving God- Loving Each Other

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:12:41 -0000

There cannot be one piece of hard evidence that Jesus existed that you would accept. You may hide behind a veneer of open-mindedness, but let us dispense with this deceit: You are as close-minded as you claim me to be. For all the research and evidence pointing to the biblical writings of the new testament being written and disseminated throughout Asia and Europe and northern Africa within 2 generations of the life of Jesus of Nazareth you reject this. You will not accept my facts and therefore will remain unconvinced except for a change of heart on your part.
My recent post Music ‘Cuz I Feel Like It

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:06:47 -0000

You sound as though you admit there is a God. You may not like Him based on your perception of Him, but I don&#039t think you&#039re an atheist so much as an anti-theist.
My recent post Music ‘Cuz I Feel Like It

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:05:16 -0000

According to the Bible, Israel (Judaism) committed what was essentially genocide and was instructed to do so a few more times than they actually did. They don&#039t get off either. But for all the millions you may claim have been killed in the name of religion (tracing the history of conflicts you find that more often than not religion was co-opted to rationalize the pride of man, cf the entire Crusades) it has been godlessness, institutionalized atheism, that has killed the most by far, and most of that has been in the 20th century, the bloodiest century in the entire history of mankind. The irreligion of Nazism (abetted by shrinking violets in the German church) committed the holocaust. It was the triumph of twisted science and a corrupted scientific mindset that determined Jews were unfit members of the human race, not some sense of religious necessity. It was the entrenched anti-god of the Bolsheviks that enslaved and killed untold millions of eastern Europeans and northwestern Asians, and the mini-me&#039s of atheistic tin-hat despots that communism and socialism fledged have kept killing right along to the current day. You may have been raised in a tradition as "crazy as the rest of them" but you&#039ve chosen a tradition that&#039s bloodier than any.
My recent post Music ‘Cuz I Feel Like It

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:46:34 -0000

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2007/01/h...

I came across this blog a while back when in a discussion about how god is a vengeful character and not a forgiving one. This guy doesn&#039t even take into account the millions upon millions upon millions of people killed by man in the name of god, ie- the inquisition, crusades, holocaust, conquistadors, etc. People who live by the bible are so friggin arrogant about thier beliefs that they have repeatedly forced people to abandon their belief systems for the word of god or face the sword. This is true for Islam as well. The only major theostic religion that has not waged holy war is Judaism, but believe me, as someone who was raised with it&#039s tradition I find it just as crazy as the rest of them. Just not as violent.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:40:31 -0000

Seriously Matt, why don&#039t you actually start to question some of the contradictions in various gospels? Why don&#039t you realize that the bible a book of tall tales. What&#039s the difference between Jack and the Beanstalk and Jonah and the Whale? Did a man named Noah really build an ark the size of Texas and fill it with one male and one female of every single species on Earth? Don&#039t call me a lunatic when you&#039re the one who lacks all modern reason and individual thought. Every single post you put up is just a regergitation of some child molesting priest deprived of all natural animal instincts and neo-con politicians trying to keep the dollars in their pockets under a falsehood of bullshit. God has killed way more people than he&#039s saved throughout history. He&#039s not a saviour of mankind, he&#039s a corruptor of power.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:40:24 -0000

Matt, you find me one piece of HARD evidence that Jesus existed. Fact is, if he was such a powerful figure don&#039t you think there would have been numerous writings of him during his existance? I think that one who lives their lives strictly according the existance of a man who has absolutely no proof if life other than a book written and so blindly turns his eye against science and reason because of this is the true lunatic.

Re: Why Jesus Would Not Vote For Obama

deirinberg — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:30:52 -0000

It would be much easier for people to find work if corporate CEO&#039s didn&#039t collect 80% of a companies profits while the workforce is stuck with pennies while giving up 60 hours a week, 50 weeks per year. Also, I love how you yet again pull little quotes out of large verses to try and prove a point that is actually extremely contradicting of the overall message of the bible. If you take the bible as a whole, it is in fact a Socialist political constitution using made up history to bring poor people to a position of power. It was used quite effectively to combat their place in Roman society. I&#039m sorry Matt, but the fictional character Jesus was a socialist. Your problem is not that you take the bible as the gospel, but that you take Rush Limbaugh as the second coming.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:22:25 -0000

It is difficult to prove a negative according to the laws of science and logic, so do you KNOW know that Jesus and God don&#039t exist? Or do you just really hope they don&#039t/didn&#039t? Or do you believe the preponderance of evidence indicates they do not exist?

The canard about the book (I assume you are speaking of the gospel accounts of Jesus&#039 life on earth as contained in the bible) being written well after Jesus was dead and by people who hadn&#039t met him is just that, a canard. And a false one at that. None of the gospels mention the destruction of Jerusalem, which would have been a direct fulfillment of some of the words of Jesus and thus quite worth noting. This is but one reason there is a high probability all the gospels (and the subsequent book of Acts) were written before AD 70, or within 35 years of Jesus&#039 death. This means a high percentage of people who met and knew Jesus would have still been alive when the gospels were being disseminated to the various churches.

To claim that Jesus was not God makes one a skeptic, to claim he did not exist at all makes one a lunatic.
My recent post Protecting Privilege

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:19:11 -0000

The strongest point towards factual evidence is that many of the microbes found in the meteorite were embeded extremely deep in the rock and were extremely unique compared to what we&#039ve seen before. That isn&#039t hard proof, but it is pretty good evidence, much more so than say living your life according to nothing but a book.

I know god and Jesus didn&#039t exist, but my question isn&#039t laughable, how else would I ask you those questions? Let me flip your question about why I believe the microbes to be extra-terestrial to why you believe in god and Jesus? What proof is there besides a book? Not to mention that the book was written well after Jesus had supposedly died by someone who had never even met the man.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:11:19 -0000

Regarding the possibility of life somewhere besides earth, do you think that based on personal belief or factual evidence. If factual evidence, what are the strongest points of that evidence?

Yes, the commandment is as you state it, and Jesus even upped the ante when he said that to fantasize about committing adultery is the same as actually doing it.

However, there are a few problems with your claim. First, you do not believe God exists, and so to your mind God could not possibly have committed adultery with Mary. And if God does not exist, the worst that happened is that Joseph engaged in coitus with Mary a bit before the ceremony that sanctioned such actions socially. So for you to make such a claim of the sin of God is rather, um, laughable.

Second, if you presuppose God exists and that the narrative of the Bible is historically accurate, even then it is not sin. While man is made in God&#039s image, it does not follow that God looks like man. God does not have a phallus and does not engage in sex, and yet the relationship of individual Christians and the Church as a whole with God is repeatedly compared to that of marriage, with God as the bridegroom and us as the bride. God, as the creator of all that is, is necessarily outside of the laws of physics and nature. Just as it is necessarily the case that a composer is not part of his composition. And so God is free to act in ways that are not constrained by those laws he created. To God, the act of causing life to form within a human womb simply requires an act of his word carried out by the Holy Spirit, in the same way acts of his word brought about the forms of creation.

I would call my definition of intelligence human-centric, but that&#039s just splitting hairs. If you are asking, by what is intelligence, what is that which differentiates between man and beast, or between man and not-man, if you presuppose the differentiation to be mere points upon a continuum of cleverness, the divide can only be defined as man and not-man; if you presuppose the differentiation to be that which God formed from the word of his mouth as opposed to that which he formed with his "hand" and breathed life into, then you can use the division of man and beast. The point being, because we approach the issue from two very different foundations, we end up talking about two very different things while using the same words.

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

deirinberg — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 13:26:00 -0000

First, yes some of the microbes could be from Earth. But, there were some that have never ever been seen before and are very different from typical Earth bacteria. Does that mean they are from outter space? No. Personally, I think there&#039s no doubt that life exists elsewhere. Second, your sin comment played right into my hands actually as God himself does not practice what he preaches. He broke one of his 10 original commandments to create Jesus. Last time I checked one of the commandments was, "Thou shall not commit adultery", or something along those lines. Mary was a married woman (to Joseph) at the time of the immaculate conception. God impregnated a married woman. He very literally broke one of his own laws and you therefore worship a sinner. Third, your definition of intelligent life is very humanistic. Who&#039s to say our ideas are the only right ones? If you ask me, anything that lives, even a single-celled protozoa, has a certain level of natural intelligence. How else do they know to eat, reproduce, and adapt to various environments? "Thought" is not necessarily the only basis for "intelligence".

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 03:00:42 -0000

And this: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/07/alien-l...
My recent post Protecting Privilege

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 02:59:20 -0000

And here it is: http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/2008438/nasa_d...

Other NASA scientists say the scientists behind this finding has been on this particular stump a long time. The most damning evidence:
"The simplest explanation is that there are microbes in the meteorites; they are Earth microbes. In other words, they are contamination," Pilcher said, adding that since the meteorites studied by Hoover are fell to the Earth&#039s surface between 100 and 200 years ago and had been previously handled by humans, "you would expect to find microbes" within them.
My recent post Protecting Privilege

Re: Today’s Interesting Stuff

music2myear — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 23:53:55 -0000

Sin is breaking God&#039s law. In the old testament, prior to Jesus&#039 coming, the law was the 10 commandments plus the various explanations and amplifications throughout the latter books of the Pentateuch. Jesus condense the law from what had become a blizzard of rules and regulations dealing with every aspect of personal, business, and social life into two simple commands: Love God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. With neighbor being defined as everybody, especially those we don&#039t tend to think of as such (Parable of the Good Samaritan).

Jesus explained through his life that keeping this "new law" was, first, not a break from the old as it encapsulated the law and addressed it&#039s true spirit, and second, was not just about acting out compliance but also required a heart attitude and motive of compliance. In this way the "new" law was even more demanding than the old. Not that anything had changed, God had required a willingness of heart above letter of the law perfection since He first gave the law to Moses. The spiritual leaders of Jesus&#039 day had, however, turned a law of the heart into a law of do&#039s and don&#039ts, and this needed addressing.

So sin can be an action that is against the law of God, but is much more frequently a thought that is taken possession of or an idea that is pursued or a motive that is against the law of God.

Intelligent life has always been hard for me to define in a scientific sense. My most accurate description right now is "I know it when I see it". Every human being I&#039ve met qualifies except one or two of my brothers. Just kidding. While various researchers have found qualities in certain animals that seem to correlate with our ideas of intelligence, a common quality of these findings seems also to be a deep familiarity with the animal subjects. Psychology today has found that deep familiarity and attachment can cause us to project upon even inanimate objects personality and qualities of a human sort. That does tend to throw such findings of intelligence, primarily found in lower mammals, in some doubt.

Currently, a ven diagram of humans and intelligent life would show one circle with both labels.
My recent post Protecting Privilege