You make a point to be sure. And it is clearly being ignored. Regardless of how it came to the point, the USA for sure would go absolutely insane, and declare war on the attackers, as well as one or two of their so called friends.

We already saw this in 9/11. We saw a conflict that required far too long to come to an inconclusion. We also saw it used, politically, as motivation to launch an additional war against someone else. I might add, that I suspect many people would consider both efforts to have been unsuccessful.

The situation in Palestine seems far more similar to the situation with the Native Americans some time ago. Land theft and ethnic cleansing by virtue of superior technology and a racial superiority complex and an unwillingness on the natives' part to just roll over. I would have hoped that we had learned something since then.

I would

Yes, I think we understand that, and we think it's fucked up.

The other point Jon made is where are you expected to run ?
Do I need to remind you that Israel shelled children playing on the beach and missile attacked a U.N. hospital and school.
The whole city is surrounded, under seige, being systematically destroyed, and no one is allowed to leave.

Strategic Ethnic cleansing. War crimes.

I realize everyone is foaming at the mouth and positive of what happened here, but it should be noted that Israel denies hitting the hospital, and that the United Nations had not confirmed the source of the blasts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/world/middleeast/despite-talk-of-a-cease-fire-no-lull-in-gaza-fighting.html?_r=0

Everyone wants to paint Israel like this giant monster, but things are being way overstated. Let's get serious. If Israel was embarking on a program of "ethnic cleansing" they could easily kill every last person in Gaza. Seems clear enough to anyone that this is not what they're trying to do.

If Hamas was in Mexico shooting rockets at Texas half the people shouting genocide at Israel would be wearing little yellow ribbons hoping our soldiers all come back safe from our Mexican invasion.

I have a hard time imagining, or believing, that anyone purposely bombed a hospital full of children. But I can easily believe accidents of all kinds will happen in a battleground the size of Detroit.

No, instead the perpetuate a state sponsored version of history that says the palestinians willingly left their homes when Israel was founded, ignoring the terror campaign instituted that made them want to leave their homes, ignoring the hundreds of thousands that were literally forced out at gun point. Instead they force their children to participate in a generations long campaign of ethnic cleansing. Instead they relocate their families to settlements, thereby implicating them in war crimes. No, they don't use suicide bombers, they just use bombers. That way they can go back over and over again.

I'm not saying the Palestinians make good neighbours. I am saying that Israel makes for a horrible neighbour.

Indeed, however with small exception I thought we were being fairly civil. That said, we all know what to expect from the 'little f*#king thing'. It's why the admins are constantly on his ass, and he may be banned again.

My point about veracity was that one has to trust the 'reporting' by others who may have an agenda to further. Without first hand knowledge, it's difficult for some (like me) to give full trust in ANY reports. I tried to read the first link you provided, but it started with a 'letter' to Saddam and I admit I didn't go farther.
As I recall, the numbers were more in the 1-300K dead from the ethnic cleansing (I have 175K in my head, but I don't know if that's right). I was old enough to watch the reports live when it happened in the 80's-90's and worry I might be drafted. I have not intended to imply Saddam wasn't terrible, only to imply he was not as bad as possible.

What I've seen so far from ISIS were hundreds if not thousands of 'prisoners' marched to their execution after surrender, even after swearing allegiance to ISIS, reports of mass rapes, village destruction, 'warnings' to all those not in line to leave or die, takeover of 1/2 the country in weeks (or less), all by 5000 people. Reports are that they are gaining members, allies, and massive amounts of money and arms. For their size, they appear to be worse than Saddam, who had hundreds of thousands, if not millions at his disposal. If you multiplied the videoed crimes of ISIS in just the last week by 200+, you would understand my point that they seem worse than most weeks of Saddam's rule....when you consider their respective sizes.
I'll hope you are correct, and ISIS is soon to be wiped out, but it's certainly not happening yet. No matter how it plays out, you are certainly right that ugly times are ahead for Iraq.

Hence, and regardless of the errant duping by certain sloppy members flexing their p'shaw and according to the rules of this game, not a dupe-

It takes a special person with lives outside of this stulltificant festival to make the needed tweak or otherwise, anappropriate adjustment...This place is in serious need of some cleansing and or participative input....

Why would losing a hand cleanse the current gene pool in any way?

He can clearly hoist that gator one-handedly.

The gene pool needs cleansing...and this guy is pretty clearly from the shallow end. Do I really need to spell out why? I truly don't want Idiocracy to become a documentary.

Sooooo sick and twisted-Too bad you can't convince peeps to exercise their collective boycott power of these places-You can't-Peeps are too uneducated and apathetic to adjust their own diets and cleanse the world of fast-food at the same time-Do you know how fast food prices in grocery stores would drop if every fast-food chain was suddenly gone tomorrow?
We could bankrupt these fools in one fiscal quarter.

I agree with most of what your typed. But can't they have a little more of an open heart? maybe even sympathize with a bunch of people who have no home and are being 'ethnically cleansed'

About the song from Wikipedia:
The title (46 and 2) references an idea first conceived by Carl Jung and later expounded upon by Drunvalo Melchizedek concerning the possibility of reaching a state of evolution at which the body would have two more than the normal 46 total chromosomes and leave a currently disharmonious state. The premise is that humans would deviate from the current state of human DNA which contains 44 autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes. The next step of evolution would likely result in human DNA being reorganized into 46 and 2 chromosomes, according to Melchizedek.
Furthermore, the song references a wish to experience change through the "shadow"; an idea which represents the parts of one's identity that one hates, fears, and represses, this exists as a recurring theme in the work of Carl Jung.



My shadow's

Shedding skin and
I've been picking
Scabs again.
I'm down
Digging through
My old muscles
Looking for a clue.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

My shadow.
Change is coming through my shadow.
My shadow's shedding skin
I've been picking
My scabs again.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within

My shadow
Change is coming.
Now is my time.
Listen to my muscle memory.
Contemplate what I've been clinging to.
Forty-six and two ahead of me.

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.

I choose to live and to
Lie, kill and give and to
Die, learn and love and to
Do what it takes to step through.

See my shadow changing,
Stretching up and over me.
Soften this old armor.
Hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow,
Coming out the other side.
Step into the shadow.
Forty six and two are just ahead of me.

Ok, I sat through the mostly flat increase in funding (against a backdrop of exponential inflation, meaning a real world decrease in funding) and thought, is this going somewhere?

Then I thought... ok, how many more comedy scare tactics are they going to use.

Then... then I got to 'Floride is the main ingredient in sarin nerve gas'. Yeah. I'm done.

You know what else is in Sarin gas? Carbon! We must cleanse our bodies of carbon, to protect our precious bodily fluids!

No one's trying to cram anything down your throat, like I said, eat whatever and however the fuck you want to.

Yea the guy in the vid has a pretty strong douchebag vibe to him, and yea he goes about making his point not in the most delicate way. That doesn't change the fact that most of what he says is more or less true.

This isn't about your personal preference, it's about how Sushi, the dish (and Nigiri and Sashimi and whatever) is meant to be eaten, in order to be able to fully appreciate the taste of raw fish.

Again, like it or not, raw fish isn't hamburger or cornflakes or whatever. Being able to appreciate a good slice of raw fish requires that, for example, you don't put fucking ginger on top of it, the whole point of it being there is to cleanse the pallet between the different fish you're eating, so you'll be able to properly taste them - when you put it on top of the fish you're basically guaranteeing that you won't be able to feel the taste. It's there for a practical reason, not as a condiment. Same goes for dipping the entire thing in soy sauce, or whatever.
Even his point about eating with your hands as opposed to chopsticks is sorta valid. Many above-average sushi dishes WILL fall apart when you try and pick them up with chopsticks.

And no, you don't have to go to a 5 Michelin starred restaurant to be able to get a good dish of raw fish. Even a market stand will do if the fish are fresh.

At least realize that this "stench of aristocracy" you're referring to is a Western phenomenon, and you perceive it as such because generally it's much more common to see stuck-up pedantic bastards being strict about these kinds of things, as opposed to most people who just wanna shove crap in their mouths and have it taste "yummy".
That doesn't change the fact that these assholes didn't invent the way sushi is "meant" to be eaten, that there is a difference between a piece of fresh fish and one that's been frozen for months, and that that delicate difference, to be noticeable and appreciable has to be shown the proper respect.
Or you can just deep fry it.

I understand now why you garner such hostility from other Sifters . Still at least your trying to engage me intellectually, in that respect at least you may consider yourself light years ahead of most of your brethren.

I garner hostility here because most of the sifters here grew up in Christian households and they've rebelled against their parents and God and they don't want to hear anything about Him. This is their sanctuary where they enjoy mocking God and Christians without any dissenting voices. I'm here because I care but I wouldn't be here unless God told me to be here. I've tried to leave a few times and He keeps sending me back. Although not so much lately.

There appear to be two fundamental points of disagreement/misunderstanding here.

...Instead we apply Hegel's Dialectic:

Thesis- all statements are false

Antithesis- therefore the above statement must be false and some statements must be true

Synthesis- statements can be both true and false simultaneously!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are two ways, and only two ways, to know truth. Either you are omnipotent, or an omnipotent being reveals it to you. Since humans are not omnipotent it is impossible to know truth unless it is revealed to us by an omnipotent being, ie God. If you think there is another way to know truth, name it. Otherwise what is there to debate? If you don't think it's possible to know truth then you don't know anything. If you don't know anything then you have nothing to talk about.

"Nothing is true" is mere expression. It is a poetic sounding mantra which contains therein a deeper wisdom about the foundations of all human knowledge. You are not specially equipped to break the problem of "under-determination" as outlined by Philosophers like David Hume. God himself could appear to you and say/do anything he liked, it would not change the fundamental limits of the human condition.

Could God reveal Himself to you in a way that you could be absolutely certain of it? It doesn't matter what we can prove to one another; God could sufficiently prove Himself to me (He has) or to you and it would transcend every piece of rationale you've offered.

How could you possibly know for certain that it was not Satan out to trick you? Satan is a deeply powerful being after all, powerful enough to fabricate a profound spiritual experience don't you think? How could you ever prove that the God you worship is not the greatest impostor in the cosmos beyond all doubt?

I know it for certain because God has made me certain. I've seen things only an omnipotent God could do, such as arranging and timing circumstances which would require Him to be in complete and precise control of everything and everyone. Satan certainly can generate profound spiritual experiences (and blindness), which is why he is able to deceive the whole world.

I ask this because the God you worship DEMANDS that you do in fact worship him (and only him) on threat of divine punishment. No true God would ever require worship, let alone demand it! What kind of sick egotist are we dealing with? (the changes in the system related to that whole Jesus thing don;t make a difference here. Either This "God" started perfect or it is not what it claims to be! Past crimes count no matter what token amends were made later on)

God doesn't need us, woo. He had perfect love within His Trinity relationships before He created anything. He doesn't demand that we worship Him because He is egotistical, He commands us to worship Him to put us in right relationship with Him as the supreme good and sustainer of all things. He is the only appropiate object for our adoration, which also puts us in right relationship with other people. Human beings are built to worship; that is why the world is littered with the carcasses of false idols. I don't just mean pagan deities, I mean power, money, fame and all of the other things human beings lust and pine away for. The thing man most likes to worship is himself. Humanists worship the intellect, and the accomplishments of human civilization. These too are idols. Everyone has something they worship, when God is the only appropiate object of our worship. The love that we have to give to all of those things comes from Him, and that is why we return it to Him, which in turn leads to greater love for all people and things. Every other kind of worship is selfish and ultimately spiritual dead(and destructive). Thus this command to worship Him alone (we were created to be in relationship with Him) is for our growth, our protection, and so that we can be who He created us to be.

Your not the only one to have experienced encounters with things you might call "Gods" or "Angels/Daemons". But the God I found lies entirely within and demands/threatens ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and sets ABSOLUTELY NO CONDITIONS. It knows that all Monads (souls) will inevitably make their way back to it, and that it has the patience of eternity with which to wait.

How do you know that?

The fundamental difference is that this God did not create the universe (an absurd answer which demands infinitely more explanation than it provides), this God is created BY THE UNIVERSE!

The explanation you provide only pushes the "absurdity" back one step; you're still left with the same problem as you say I have. Yet, it is not a problem to believe in something eternal. To believe something came from nothing wouldbe the absurdity. Do you believe the Universe is eternal?

We are all "God" experiencing itself subjectively as it evolves teleologically towards perfection. If Consciousness is eternal then this is the only outcome that makes any sense. God being perfect and beyond all time experiences everything it is conceivably possible for a perfect being to experience within an instant of non-time. With all of eternity stretched it before it does the only sensible thing it could do, it commits suicide and returns the universe to a state of pure potential, ready to undergo the experience of evolving from the most basic "mathematical" principles to fully actualised and all powerful consciousness (i.e. back at God again). A fundamental part of this entire process is the journey from elemental and animalistic unconsciousness to fully self aware enlightened consciousness, the highest truth then is to discover that you yourself are God (at least in-potentia), not some mysterious external power.

If God is perfect, which He is, then He isn't limited. His joy never ends; it is the limitation of the human intellect that prevents you from understanding an infinite being, so you have devised a scenario based on those limitations where you impose a limitation on Gods experience so that He is forced to "commit suicide" in order to have new and enjoyable experiences. An infinite being experiences infinite joy. A perfect being will always be perfect. God doesn't evolve; a perfect being has no need to evolve or ever become "basic". He is eternally perfect, and we are not.

1 John 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

The other is your conviction that the Gospel is absolutely true and that you appear to see everything related to it and the greater human spiritual quest via this filter. I'm not going to trade scripture with you on matters of pedantry it'll take all day and get neither of us anywhere. Instead I shall focus on one key argument that undermines the entire house of cards. If the God of Abraham and the old testament is one in the same as the God of which Jesus preaches (/is in corporeal form) and further more that the Old testament is in some way a true account of his/its actions......Then the God of Abraham and Jesus is demonstrably A. not perfect and B. malevolent/incompetent.

Yes, the God Abraham is the God Jesus is referring to. The error is that you think you understand God better than Jesus did. Jesus is the perfect representation of God; His exact image. If you've seen Jesus you have seen the Father. They are one and the same in terms of their character and every other attribute. You don't see that because you don't understand the scriptures. Jesus did, which is why He said things like this:

John 17:23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

The atheist version of studying the bible is to look for something that seems to contradict the claims of Christians so that they can throw it in the garbage and be done with it. You would see the same God that Jesus represents in the Old Testament if you understood the history that it presents.

Go ask the Benjamites or the Canaanites how they feel about this "God". Or how about the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah? The firstborn of Egypt? etc. etc.

Go ask the criminals on death row how they feel about the judge and prosecutor who sent them there. Does that mean they don't deserve to be there?

Yaweh demands Abraham sacrifice his own son, truly the act of a benevolent creature no? And while were on the subject what kind of "God" demands a blood sacrifice for anything? Even if it was a legitimate test of Abrahams faith (a highly dubious notion unto itself) what about the poor goat sacrificed in his sons stead?
This leads into the key difference between the Gnostic God/The Buddha/Dau/Chi etc. (Esoteric) and the Abrahamic God (Exoteric).....

God didn't ask Abraham to do anything that He wasn't willing to do Himself, but unlike Abraham God did sacrifice His son. This is what I mean when I say that you you're not understanding what you're reading. The sacrifice of Issac is a picture of Jesus Christ. You don't see these things because you don't know what to look for.

One merely offers the wisdom to transcend the suffering inherent in mortal life and make ones way back to union with that which we were all along. It is not invested in the material world, it is merely a higher expression of consciousness no longer bound by emergent natural laws. It never judges, it never condemns or punishes and it helps only those who are ready to help themselves.

The other demands blood sacrifices, incites genocides, sets strict rules and threatens you with damnation if you don't obey, demands worship (WORSHIP! WTF!!!!), inspires/authors deeply contradictory and difficult to understand written works (it expects you to accept on faith alone), claims to be a perfect creator of a universe into which suffering and imperfection are inherent (perfect beings do not create imperfect things) etc. etc.

Here is the difference..the God you describe wants to "help" you out of a situation that it created because of its own limitations and need for self-gratification. It is not only responsible for evil, but it does nothing about it. The God you describe is limited, selfish and immoral.

The way you describe my God is a strawman argument in itself. It is not an accurate representation of the biblical account. The God of the Universe created a perfect Universe and endowed His creatures with free will. The creatures He created freely chose to do evil and this is what brought sin and death into the world. This is the reason for the imperfection, and God, at great personal cost to Himself, restored and reconciled His creation through Jesus Christ.

You won't be able to understand the bible without Gods help:

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

That's why I suggested you read the gospel of John, if you really do want to understand God accurately, and pray for assistance.

I don't side with Lucifer (I think she has the opposite problem to Jehova i.e. enlightenment at all costs as quickly as possible and damm the journey to get there), but I do recognise her as the fundamentally opposing force to Jehovah/Allah out of which a higher synthesis emerges (Abraxas the Gnostic God of light, or whatever you want to call it). Jehovah represents supreme attachment to the material world (R>0),

It's a false dichotomy. What you're describing when you refer to God is the gnostic demiurge, which bears no resemblence to the God of the bible. There are no opposing forces to be spoken of because there is no actual duality. God is only light and the only thing He is attached to is His children, because He freely loves them. He is the only power in the Universe. Satan has a paper kingdom; it is just shadows on the wall. In any case, you can't escape the corruption caused by your sin nature. If you shatter a mirror, no matter how well you glue it back together it will never reflect purely again. It doesn't need to be repaired, it needs to be replaced. This is why Jesus said you need to be born again:

John 3:3 Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

When you receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, He will send the Holy Spirit to live inside of you and make you a new person. You are spiritually dead in sins and transgressions, but the Holy Spirit will regenerate your spirit and cleanse you from all of your sin.

while Lucifer supreme attachment to the spiritual/mental (R=0). A wise man see's the two as a personification of the two highest drives in the human psyche and thus concepts to be transcended/mastered.

Satan desired one thing, which was to be God. He became prideful because of his great beauty and intellect and based on his ignorance of Gods true nature, he tried to form a rebellion against God to replace Him and was kicked out of Heaven. This is essentially the process you are describing for those who believe they are God. All Satan is trying to do is duplicate his errors in you and as many other people as he can so that he can destroy them before his time comes. He can't strike back at God directly so he goes after his creatures. Satan is an imitator; he is a potter just as God is a potter. He is doing everything possible to shape and mold you into his image and character, and he has entire universes of deception waiting for you, filled with as much "secret knowledge and wisdom" as you desire. He has a door for every kind of person, every kind of philosophy; his is the broad road that leads to destruction. Jesus said enter through the narrow gate:

Mat 7:13 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

Mat 7:14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Either way I regard worshipping the God of Abraham as the "one true God" to be a supreme mistake, if Jesus professes to preach that same God's gospel then following him would be a supreme mistake also. I show no fealty to torture Gods, I have more self respect than that.

You surely prefer the idol you have created in your own mind, because that is the god who allows you to do whatever you want. That's all this is really about. Do you know what Jesus said the reason is that men won't come to God?:

John 3:19-21

19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

You don't get to decide who God is, and just because you don't think you should be accountable for what you've done in this life doesn't mean you won't be.

For the record. I love you as much as any other creature in this cosmos but I don't pray to anything for your soul to be saved. Truly it was never in jeopardy in the first place! That part of you which lies beyond the limits of mortality will find its way back to the highest state eventually no matter what, even if it takes eons. In the mean time however I'm happy to waste a small portion of said eons arguing (I suspect futilely) with you on the internet.

God loves you and I love you, and that's why I am telling you all of this. The highest state is the lowest state:

Mat 23:11 The greatest among you shall be your servant.

Mat 23:12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

(I'll get back to you on some of your other more specific points at a later point, I don't have the time or inclination to dig out the texts to make those counter arguments right now.)

Take your time. God bless.

aaronfr and Kofi,

You both seem to have the notion that Israel is, has and always will be the aggressor in it's relationship with it's neighbours. If you want to talk about unjustified acts of aggression between Israel and neighboring arab states, you can't decide to only look at the time frame which supports your position.

What is your view on Israel's declaration of independence? Even Al Jazeera describes the events as the culmination of a civil war between Jewish and Arab Palestinians, in which the Jewish Palestinians were the minority. The Jewish Palestinians were largely victorious, and declared independence within the the territory they held. Immediately, all neighboring Arab states declared war on them and proceeded to promise a cleansing that would drive the Jews into the sea. They even encouraged an extensive temporary mass exodus of all Arab Palestinians for the expected short duration of the conflict. After all, each individual Arab state vastly outnumbered Israel by itself. To their great consternation, Israel survived and has been in constant conflict ever since.

Don't come out pretending that nobody ever attacks Israel when groups like Hamas and Hezbollah launch attacks into Israeli territory every week. Don't claim you support Syria's or Iran's 'peaceful', position in this when they promise the destruction of Israel and continually provide funding, training and weapons to groups directly launching attacks on Israel.

You cry double standard, and that Israel's attacks are unjustified. Where are you similar cries against Syria and Iran when weapons made by them, and deployed by people they have trained hit Israel?

The point is that violence against and from Israel has been a two way street since before it's declaration of independence, and demanding Israel just take it's lumps and do nothing but file complaints at the UN in it's own defense is naive in the extreme.