I don't understand what the republicans are so afraid of. Gays and lesbians are in the military. Nothing will change if this bill is passed, other than a change in civil liberties. Gays in the military will not become open in the military on any noticeable scale. Hell, it's not o.k for a soldier who has been in COMBAT to say that his experiences troubled him for fear that it would make him appear weak. When someone does admit combat stress he would be ostracized and cast out as being a fag; That is, when I served. If a homosexual admitted to being such, he/she would be verbally berated by peers and leaders, downgraded in their duties and their lives would be a living hell. Any gay or lesbian thinking about signing up should ask their recruter how they should handle it. They would tell them to never mention it again or risk total alienation. Bottom line, nothing will really change. I do agree with the bill. I think that it sets a precedent that they are equal and should not be descriminated against, especially since being gay or lesbian will not effect their performance despite common stereotypes. I have never seen a feminine male or female in the service. It takes a certain attitude to be willing to do what they do. Wow, that was the first almost positive thing Iv'e said on this site in a while. fells kind of good not to hate everything.

I wonder how they even got that single black kid.

"We're all robots, and you must be a robot too". Awesome.

Basically, the moral of the story: prayers won't heal your friends, but you cannot ever question Him or you will be cast out from your friends, who are all Robots.

>> ^Sagemind:
I personaly think the brother with the camera is seriousl messed up as well - getting pleasure out of destroying a persons self worth doesn't constitute comedy to me. The first freak out was funny, though uncalled for. This second video just takes it too far for me. The one brother is going to suffer some serious dammage here - Where are the parents???

Cast out the weak...that's been the name of the game for thousands of years.

"Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil... Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven..."

Luke Chap 6:22

You're almost there Cheney!

Never serve your country - Check
Deny own Daughter right to marry - Check
Talk shit even though you had a chance and blew it - Check
Get away with it - ... possibly check mate! I think i DO hate you!!!



Here, this is the only quote we need: "President Obama has made wise decisions." - Former VP Cheney, 5/21/09.

Thanks DICK.. oh... theres more? but you summed it up so nicely at the beginning

>> ^MaxWilder:
Though it is quite well known that the highly educated are far more likely to be atheist, I think the morality factor is a result of the depth of self-reflection. However, those who are self-reflective enough to develop their own reality-based morality systems are more likely to be the type of person who also seeks knowledge of the world. Thus the education and morality go hand in hand, but are not dependent on one another, so there will be exceptions.
Though I am an atheist, I date women without regard to their beliefs, as long as they are comfortable with my rationalism. However, if I ever found out that the girl I was dating didn't go to college, that would make me much more doubtful that the relationship could ever go anywhere.
I really don't blame Steve Harvey for the beliefs he shared. His heart is in the right place, he's just coming from a place of deep ignorance that has been embedded in him from his community, just like anybody else who thinks religion and morality are linked in any way.

I think morality is, for the most part, a biological instinct that has helped us maintain small functional tribes of people. We used to need this tribe to survive and those with certain traits counterproductive to the collective goal were cast out of the tribe and left to fend for himself and more importantly, not mate and pass those traits on, while those with traits that benefited the tribes were commended, rewarded, and sometimes idolized and of course they got to spread their seed. So through the process of evolution, most of us have a common set of guidelines to live by. Of course, the brain is very complex and some will still be born with some "screws loose".

Ethics on the other hand, is something for the knowledge seeking, highly educated human to discuss.

This is a sad truth that reflects the disdain for women in the eastern culture. Women are merely assets, decoration, and playthings for the men. Despite cries for help, most women are forced to be silent for fear of losing what they have in a world where a lone woman has no rights. It is tragic how these women can be married and look forward to a prosperous life only to have it pulled out from under them. They have no way to defend their lives, they are simply cast out. Living in a world that can *promote this kind of cruelty towards any person, male of female has got to be a life filled with dread, loneliness and fear. I can't even imagine how it would be to live as a woman where they have less value than the cattle. The severity of the sadness this void of freedom leaves behind in deafening.

I don't think Gopnik is necessary defending religion, though he finds problems in Dawkin's offensive against religion as a intellectual argument since the book pretty much says that "theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful".

Thus everything religion has created, for example the by product of religious art and poetry is also wrong and should be cast out. That's a narrow way of looking at things, because historically back then even with your argument that religion funded art, there was devotion because there was a lack of evidence of anything other, due to the underdevelopment of scientific theory.

Likewise I disagree with Dawkin's argument that peoples spiritual needs can be met with philosophy and science. I do agree with his arguments against indoctrination and the subversion of reason through literal readings of religious texts.

If the moneylenders are cast out of the temple, move the temple to the moneylenders

Who decides if the devil is such a bad guy?

I heard that she was cast out of heaven because she disagreed with god.

I met Lu at a kegger, she seemed to be a very nice lady.

Here is a question, in all of those emails Dawkin's read they stated how the devil is going to love punishing him. But I don't get it, why would the devil take pleasure in punishing someone who hates/doesn't believe in god? That would make the devil the servant of god, but he was cast out because he wasn't a servant of god. Soo... does anyone see where I am going with this? It's on the tip of my tongue and I can't think of a way to express my thought.

Um, because he's talking about recent history, wazant. This is happening NOW.

Let me tell you why all Muslims should be lumped together. The same reason all Christians should be lumped together. Because the nut-jobs that follow the worst aspects of the religion are tolerated by the rest. The ones who are filled with hate and are trying to push their agenda on the rest of the world are given support, or at the very least a safe haven by those who are more moderate. If the extremists were denounced and cast out of society, there would be no need for rants like Condell gives. But instead the extremists are held up for their convictions and live in positions of respect.

I blame them all. Just as I blame myself and every American for allowing George Bush to terrorize people all over the world. We are all complicit.

I'm going to vote this up not because I agree with the video at all, but because it deserves a place here on the sift for discussion by rational individuals who can see the fear/scare/hatred mongering that this film really is.

Any film that tries to paint Dawkins in a bad light is in my big book o' bad.

The scary thing is that Christians all around the world will use this pile of drivel as support and 'fact' for their fight. Even though this will be using incorrect assumptions and bald faced lies, they will use it as a tool to push their agenda.

It's just another way of crying 'Religious persecution'.

Scientists are not ridiculed for suggesting things outside of the norm... that's how discoveries are made. What they are ridiculed and cast out for is BAD SCIENCE. Those that suggest there is intelligent design in us are using BAD SCIENCE. That's why they can't get tenure, that's why they lose that jobs. They are BAD SCIENTISTS... not shunned for daring to question, shunned for being shit at the job they are pretending to be good at.

There are bad scientists just like there are bad... well, anything, every profession has people in it who are good and others who are bad at it. Those who believe in intelligent design are displaying a terrible lack of being able to apply scientific process to things. "Gee, that's pretty darn complicated.... must have been made by some Omnipotent being, who in and of themselves must be infinitely MORE complicated... but that doesn't matter they just kind of... exist, I don't have to explain them"

Idiots.

I thought the whole point of Jesus and all that bloody Mel Gibson Movie stuff was to remove the necessity of The Old Law - to allow individuals to have a personal relationship with god.


The 10 commandments is primarily a post-biblical politico-religious invention.

There is no part in the bible that lists them the way most people know them.
Deuteronomy 5 is the closest that most catholics and prodestants know, except in a much more long winded format. It forbids making any image of any thing. Photos, sculptures, paintings, etc. are all forbidden. It also says, in verse 9

" Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me"

---- gee, sounds fair, huh?





Exodous 20 is a rehashing, with some subtle differences.


The Actual tablets that Moses brings down from the mountain are VASTLY different than what most people know as "the 10 commandments".

Exodous 34
1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
[...]
11 Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
-----
14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
15 Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;
16 And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
-----
17 Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
-----
18 The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.
-----
19 All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.
20 But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
-----
21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
-----
22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
23 Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel.
24 For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
-----
25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.
-----
26 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.
-----
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
-----
27 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

God didn't create hell. This is B.S. Hell is where you go if you chose to be without God. Colbert NAILED IT. Upvote for that.

Whoa. We have a BOOKS channel? Nice!

Going back to the earlier point in the vid, who said we're perfect? That's news to me.

>> ^Jordass:
I cant help but think Colbert didnt really pwn anyone. He really didnt prove his side. All he did was change the word "obey" to "love" and therefore it must be good and right. Very Faux News of him in a way. We go to hell cause we fall out of Gods love? You mean we dont do what he says. I mean the author i think was making an interesting point that if man was made in gods image with the hopes of being perfect then even God has to admit he fucked up. We arent perfect (which makes life worth living i might add) but of course God can never admit when he's wrong or the whole universe would implode Dogma style but with no Chris Rock. He derailed a little when he said Satan was right and God was wrong, he was trying to prove a point that if you ever disobey you will be forever damned. Satan was Gods favorite angel and yet he had no problem in making him the epitome of all evil to dwell forever in hell and as George Carlin said he has no problem sending us to hell to suffer and burn and rot for all eternity because he loves us. Colbert sounded like another individual who has been brainwashed into this manipulative concept to cover up why God punishes us for not doing exactly what he says by calling it "Love"


I know where you're coming from, but this is a basic tenet of Catholic theology, not Faux News at all. You don't "go to hell cause we fall out of God's love"... hell is the state of being when you choose NOT to love God.

You're not being SENT there. You *Choose* to go there.

What the video doesn't mention is that you're supposed to listen to your conscience, which some wise people have defined as the voice of God in your soul - but more practically, it's your sense of what's right and wrong. If you think the 'authority' is wrong, and you genuinely feel it's the morally correct thing to do (i.e., don't let the government imprison and kill your neighbour for being of a different race/creed), then you're doing the right thing by 'disobeying', because you're following a higher law, the law of goodness, not some corrupt evil thing dreamed up by psychopaths.

The logic is that Satan chose to become the epitome of evil.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
That guy may know psychology, but he has one twisted view of Christian theology.
No, he has the right view.Christianity, like all religion, are tools of totalitarianism and blind obedience, its just coersive, lying, advanced memes for saying things like "Dont think for yourself" and "respect authority", Some people fall for this crap and think theres some advanced thinking that they are really doing, we call these people idio.. uh, religious


Seriously, this is not Jesus' teaching, nor the teaching of the Catholic Church. After all, Jesus was essentially murdered / executed for advocating disobedience to corrupt authority figures.

>> ^Jordass:
Deedub I have heard this explanation before and personally i think it casts an even more negative light on religion and God. If God knows all and knew Eve would be tempted because evil needs to exist then he was just setting up an elaborate scheme just to punish us in the end. "Oh here is paradise" all the while knowing that he is going to cast out his creations. Why go through this whole bipolar process of giving and taking away unless you were either sadistic or wanted to make sure people stayed in their place and obeyed. Much like the old wrathful bitter god and the new loving forgiving god supposedly being the same god. God has played this trick before with Abraham and Jobb and its a pretty sick way to make a point. I dont like being used, we are not puppets, and it seems thats all God does is use us for the purposes of loving him.


This mixes up cause and effect, really. Watch the Star Trek episode where, IIRC, Q forces a chick to love Riker. That's what would happen if you didn't have free will.

Organized Religion is, reduced to a raw point, a way of coping with the blowback from free will. (i.e., means of delivering salvation)

You can have a semantic argument about whether this is a "sick game" to make you love God, or an intelligent response to a messy problem, but I've made my position clear.

Deedub I have heard this explanation before and personally i think it casts an even more negative light on religion and God. If God knows all and knew Eve would be tempted because evil needs to exist then he was just setting up an elaborate scheme just to punish us in the end. "Oh here is paradise" all the while knowing that he is going to cast out his creations. Why go through this whole bipolar process of giving and taking away unless you were either sadistic or wanted to make sure people stayed in their place and obeyed. Much like the old wrathful bitter god and the new loving forgiving god supposedly being the same god. God has played this trick before with Abraham and Jobb and its a pretty sick way to make a point. I dont like being used, we are not puppets, and it seems thats all God does is use us for the purposes of loving him.