Politics in the Animal Kingdom: Single Transferable Vote has been added as a related post - related requested by RFlagg on that post.

Nonsense.

If you were a true Christian, you'd follow the laws of the old testament too.
I presume you don't go into town everyday and put people of other religions to the sword?

I want to address this scripture quotation first:

Matthew 5:17

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

You have fundamentally misunderstood what Jesus is saying here. What do you think He is talking about? What do you think He means when He said He came to fulfill the law? Please elaborate.. This, however, is what He was talking about:

John 19:28 After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.

He fulfilled what the law and prophets said about Him on the cross.

Luke 24:44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

What did they write concerning Him?

Luke 24:25 And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!

Luke 24:26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?"

You need to understand what was written about Jesus and how He fulfilled it before you can understand what He was talking about.

Your misunderstanding of the gospel and Old Testament law not withstanding, a true Christian is not under the old covenant, they are under the new covenant.

Romans 10:4-10 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.

But the righteousness based on faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

The old covenant is for Israel, the new covenant is for the whole world. Christians are not under law, but grace.

Romans 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

So you can drop the "no true scotsman" fallacy....

It's funny you would invoke this fallacy, yet state earlier "If you were a true Christian.." Yet, according to Jesus, there are true and false Christians:

Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

A true Muslim follows Allah, and Allah has instructed his followers to exterminate all of the nonbelievers.

It's officially known as a report on the "Measurement of the Duration of a Trendless Subsample in a Global Climate Time Series." In lay-speak, it's a study of just how long the current pause in global warming has lasted. And the results are profound:

According to Canadian Ross McKitrick, a professor of environmental economics who wrote the paper for the Open Journal of Statistics, "I make the duration out to be 19 years at the surface and 16 to 26 years in the lower troposphere depending on the data set used."

In still plainer English, McKitrick has crunched the numbers from all the major weather organizations in the world and has found that there has been no overall warming at the Earth's surface since 1995 - that's 19 years in all.

During the past two decades, there have been hotter years and colder years, but on the whole the world's temperatures have not been rising. Despite a 13 per cent rise in carbon dioxide levels over the period, the average global temperature is the same today as it was almost 20 years ago.

In the lower atmosphere, there has been no warming for somewhere between 16 and 26 years, depending on which weather organization's records are used.

Not a single one of the world's major meteorological organizations - including the ones the United Nations relies on for its hysterical, the-skies-are-on-fire predictions of environmental apocalypse - shows atmospheric warming for at least the last 16 years. And some show no warming for the past quarter century.

This might be less significant if some of the major temperature records showed warming and some did not. But they all show no warming.

Even the records maintained by devoted eco-alarmists, such as the United Kingdom's Hadley Centre, show no appreciable warming since the mid-1990s.

Despite continued cymbal-crashing propaganda from environmentalists and politicians who insist humankind is approaching a critical climate-change tipping point, there is no real evidence this is true.

There are no more hurricanes than usual, no more typhoons or tornadoes, floods or droughts. What there is, is more media coverage more often.

Forty years ago when a tropical storm wiped out villages on a South Pacific Island there might have been pictures in the newspaper days or weeks later, then nothing more. Now there is live television coverage hours after the fact and for weeks afterwards.

That creates the impression storms are worse than they used to be, even though statistically they are not.

While the UN's official climate-scare mouthpiece, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has acknowledged the lack of warming over the past two decades, it has done so very quietly. What's more, it has not permitted the facts to get in the way of its continued insistence that the world is going to hell in a hand basket soon unless modern economies are crippled and more decision-making power is turned over to the UN and to national bureaucrats and environmental activists.

Later this month in New York, the UN will hold a climate summit including many of the world's leaders. So frantic are UN bureaucrats to keep the climate scare alive they have begun a worldwide search for what they themselves call a climate-change "Malala."

That's a reference to Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban after demanding an education. Her wounding sparked a renewed, worldwide concern for women's rights.

The new climate spokeswoman must be a female under 30, come from a poor country and have been the victim of a natural disaster.

If the facts surrounding climate-disaster predictions weren't falling apart, the UN wouldn't such need a sympathetic new face of fear.

All hail Her Grace, Elizabeth of House Windsor, second of Her Name, Queen of England and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm!

German Channel ProSieben - Galileo featured Miroslaw Magola who promotes Telekinesis. Real Magneto, X- Men, Miroslaw Magola's telekinesis is achieved by projecting a portion of his consciousness in the object that he want to move.

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku : THE FUTURE OF THE MIND: The scientific quest to understand, enhance, and empower the mind.” And his quest to promote: “Telepathy. Telekinesis. Mind reading. Photographing a dream. Uploading memories. Mentally controlled robots.”

Kaku claims all of “these feats” have already been achieved. “These feats, once considered science fiction, have now been achieved in the laboratory, as documented in THE FUTURE OF THE MIND,” Kaku’s website declares.

Kaku notes that his “book goes even further, analyzing when one day we might have a complete map of the brain, or a back up Brain 2.0, which may allow scientists to send consciousness throughout the universe.” Miroslaw Magola alias "Magnetic Man," ( Magnet Mann ) known form Stan Lee's Superhumans - MInd Force who allegedly exhibits telekinetic powers aired on History and Discovery Channel born in Poland and now living in Germany. He claims he can lift objects off the floor, transport them through the air and force them to stick to his body - all using the power of his mind .

He was investigated by Prof. Dr. Dr. Ruhenstroth-­Bauer and Dr. Friedbert Karger of the Max Planck Institute and Dr. David Lewis (psychologist), a neurophysiologist at MindLab, one of the United Kingdom's leading neuro-research centers and Dr. Konstantin Korotkov, professor of Physics at St. Petersburg State Technical University in Russia and Alexander Imich from USA. More [url redacted]

Some interesting Rankings that weren't shown:
Canada 12th
Australia 14th
United States 21st

Brazil 49th
Mexico 66th
Saudi Arabia 92nd
Qatar 111th
Iraq 123rd
Lybia 125th


Some interesting Stats:

#1 Science & Technology = United Kingdom
#1 Culture = Belgium
#1 Int'l Peace and Security = Egypt
#1 World Order = Germany
#1 Planet & Climate = Iceland
#1 Prosperity & Equality = Ireland
#1 Health & Well Being = Spain

http://www.goodcountry.org/overall

I thought this was another 4chan mass-troll when i first heard of it. Perhaps it will be this year's "Kony 2012." I've never heard anyone called bossy that wasn't striding around demanding things, telling people what they should be doing without consideration for the situation, etc. I've never heard anyone called a leader that wasn't a problem-solver with a good ability to express themselves. Part of me wants to believe this is some sort of inter-Atlantic difference because i've been so isolated from any evidence of it being a problem.

I've got three points and i'll try to make them succinct. If anyone wants to pull me up on them, i'll go further.

1. The word bossy is not inherently sexist. Sometimes people are bossy. Calling a girl bossy doesn't make you sexist. This campaign can make villains out of people in the same way that a girl getting called bossy can unfairly stereotype a strong willed woman. At best it trades one form of unfairness for another.

2. Human beings come in two flavours. One of them is man, another is woman. Man and woman are different. They will never in the foreseeable future be equal in all things, and it is not sexist a) to say that or b) for that to be the norm. This is the way of the animal kingdom - we see it in animals, and we are animals. Because of our different chemical composition, we will have a natural role diversity that is is absolutely unavoidable and has nothing to do with fairness. In lieu of this, any study that says "gender A is less represented in field B because sexism," has a hell of a lot of factors to take into account, some of which i'm not even sure can be accounted for. I am in no way stating that all of one particular gender are better than all of the other gender at any given thing; i am saying that on average, testosterone and oestrogen will soften or harden the heart in different ways (to simplify the argument) which will lead on average to gender weighting. It is going to take a lot more than a few poems and forceful statements to convince me. Where are the sources and the studies, and what authority do they have? Furthermore where are the studies about word-prohibition in the grand scheme of solving problems? i.e. How do we know this is a good idea even if there is a problem?

3. "Banning" a word empowers that word for those who would use it for harm. Or people will find a new way of expressing the same idea. In Britain people thought that UKIP (*spit*) should be kept off TV because giving them political air-time legitimised them. In actual fact, the better idea (and eventual decision) was to put them on TV and allow them to make idiots of themselves with their inherent stupidity. I suggest a similar thing is true of banning the word bossy. Let it be said, and make it abundantly clear how wrong it is when it gets said.

This was a really bad idea that stems from a great intention. And for the record, i love bossy girls - it would benefit me to see more empowered woman in the world. It's not easy finding them.

Amusing, as many people who have spent any real time examining economic issues and social justice would call your dismissive attitude the naive one. Try actually arguing on a point by point basis against the economic exploitation that lies at the basis of current capitalist systems where jobs = survival and the whole system's been carved up into little feudal kingdoms instead of just accepting claims on their face simply because you've been told your whole life how wonderful our way of living is for all of us.

If you approach the task with any sincerity, you'll first realize that there's a metric fuck ton of awful things that we have done in the name of economic domination to preserve our power over others (as a nation, as a collection of businesses, as a herd of lazy people buying products made by child labor simply because it's convenient), and you'll likely then also realize that your history book was just as rose-tinted as the Japanese governments' when they refuse to talk about Japan's war crimes.

Edumacate yourself and then see if you can still just throw out trite dismissals like that.

So this is what the guy from Unicorn Kingdom Club has been up to... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MKyku2cvl4

Yeah-Right now I'm projecting a thousand laser pointers directly into your retinas with the hope that when your sockets are free of those squishy fluid bags in the land of the blind, the no-eyed man man behind the dark sockets remains perfectly satisfied in the darkness of his own kingdom.

Believe me Sigmond, projection is as far afield of my issues with this particular round of banter as that dashing ape of yours is from knowing shit about that .45-

Water Night

Night with the eyes of a horse that trembles in the night,
night with eyes of water in the field asleep
is in your eyes, a horse that trembles,
is in your eyes of secret water.

Eyes of shadow-water,
eyes of well-water,
eyes of dream-water.

Silence and solitude,
two little animals moon-led,
drink in your eyes,
drink in those waters.

If you open your eyes,
night opens, doors of musk,
the secret kingdom of the water opens
flowing from the center of night.

And if you close your eyes,
a river fills you from within,
flows forward, darkens you:
night brings its wetness to beaches in your soul.

Octavio Paz, 1914-1998
(Adapted by Eric Whitacre, Translation by Muriel Rukeyser)

There is some truth in what you've said. For one, the bible says that Christians are the light of the world. Our number one responsibility is not to change the culture, but to allow God to change us so that His light, the light of Jesus Christ will shine forth from our lives and touch those around us. It is the church who retreated from the culture in the preceding decades which has allowed these forces that shape our culture today to slowly encroach on it, and eventually take over. The influence of the church on the culture is minimal because Christians have not been shining their light. Instead, it has largely taken an adversarial position and been engaged in a protracted "culture war". The real business of the kingdom of God is not shaping our culture through legislation, but by showing agape love to all those who cross our path. Jesus said that our unity and love towards one another is the evidence that He was sent by the Father:

Joh 17:21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Likewise, our lack of love and infighting is evidence to the world that the Father did not send Jesus. Unfortunately, those who are really living for Christ do not stand out as much as those who are not. Before I knew the Lord, I didn't have any positive examples of Christians in my life. I wasn't born into religion and didn't have much exposure to the church aside from what I saw on television. Now that I have seen what is going from the inside I can say that the vast majority of the positive things that Christians do is not reported on. In my town, the churches are all working together to serve the community, despite their differences. Many have been blessed and many lives have been transformed in wonderful ways, but you'll never hear about it unless it comes by word of mouth.

So, when you say Jesus hung out with sinners, this is essentially what the church should be doing, which is not to go a building every week and shout hallelujah, but to get out there and serve your community. To form relationships with people and to meet them where they are at and what their needs may be. Yet, you couldn't really say that Jesus "hung out" with sinners. Certainly He visited with sinners and ate meals with them, because He loved them. This really bothered the pharisees who asked Jesus one day why He did that. This is what He said:

Luke 5:30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"
Luke 5:31 And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
Luke 5:32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

Jesus hung out with sinners because He loved them, and because He loved them He was calling them to repentance. Jesus did teach about hell and the fear of God, in fact Jesus said more about hell than every person in the bible combined. Most of what we know about hell was spoken by the Lord. It is the reality of hell that led Jesus to the cross:

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Jesus did not come to condemn, but save. He shed His innocent blood for our crimes, so that we can be forgiven and have eternal life. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news for all who are held in the bondage of sin and facing eternal separation from God.

Let's look at the scripture in a little more detail:

Mat 19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

This scripture is at the tail end of a conversation Jesus had with a young rich man. The young man had inquired of the Lord how he could have eternal life. The answer Jesus gave was simple, "sell your possesions and follow me." In the rest of the scripture we see that the only requirements for salvation is a confession of Jesus as Lord and a belief that He was raised from the dead. So, why did the Lord give the additional requirement to the rich young man of selling all of his possessions? We see why in the next verse:

Matthew 19:22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

This man, even knowing that Jesus could instruct him on how to attain eternal life, could not follow after the Lord because he loved his wealth more than God. This is what Jesus said in Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

His riches were the stumbling block preventing him from following the Lord, and that is why the Lord dealt with it there. The Lord knew He was a slave to his wealth and could not bear to be parted from it, even at the expense of his eternal life. This is a reason why the Lord warned us in Matthew 16:26

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Which is to say, that if someone laid all the wealth of the world at your feet, and you traded your soul for it, you would have made an unprofitable deal. The wealth of this world is perishing and will pass away, and we along with it, but those who do the will abide with Him forever. So, let's look on to what Jesus said to His disciples after the young rich man parted:

Matthew 19:23-26 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?

But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

You'll notice that Jesus only said it was impossible for men, but with God all things are possible. The problem with the young rich man was not his wealth but his heart condition before God. He wanted the gift more than he wanted the giver of the gift. When Jesus put his loyalties to the test, the true condition of his heart was exposed. There is nothing inherently bad about money, but there is something inherently bad about putting it before God. That is the sin of idolatry, and that is what Jesus is condemning, not money itself. Take Joseph of Arimethea for example:

Matthew 27:57-60 When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus.
He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.

And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.

Joseph was a disciple of Jesus yet He did not require Joseph to sell all of his possessions. Indeed, if he had Joseph would not have been able to provide the tomb that Jesus was buried in, ultimately fulfilling the prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah 53:9.

So, to conclude, what God is most concerned about is the heart. If your love for your possesions is what is keeping you from the Lord, He may ultimately require you to sacrifice them. I think is especially difficult for the rich man to realize his need for salvation because he is so self-sufficient. He believes he is in control of his life because his money insulates him from many of the cares of this world. He does not realize that his very breath rests in the hands of the Lord. He may not confess, as Job did, that his riches are all blessings from on High, and at the disposal of the Almighty to do with them what He may.

Job 1:21 And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."

OMFG... the threads... First Bob calls liberals two faced, but Conservatives were upset at the Dixie Chicks when they spoke out against Bush and his wars. Many conservatives demanded the Dixie Chips sponsors drop them and had large CD burning events, all over the fact they spoke their mind and their beliefs. Now these same people are upset at A&E for suspending a guy (a rather worthless suspension since the upcoming season is already filmed and he's already in it, and it is making free publicity for a stupid show about rich people).

This isn't a free speech issue. He isn't in jail for espousing anti-gay and racist remarks. He was suspended for saying something that made his part time employer look bad. Food Network fired Paula Dean. There was a PR lady who was going to Africa on a business trip that got fired after she tweeted she hopes she doesn't get AIDS, but no problem since she's white. You represent your company, officially or not, and make them look bad, your employer can fire you. You can say what you want, but sometimes that speech has consequences. A&E created the Duck Dynasty image, he made their network look bad, they have the right to suspend him... suspend, they didn't even fully fire him. Were they really outraged they would have pulled the show or edited him out of the upcoming season, but they didn't do any of that. They made a publicity grabbing move to suspend him.

This video also highlights the one key point I've been saying the whole time. That Jesus Himself said it is impossible for a rich man to get into heaven, doesn't matter if they want to or do follow Him, they have their reward here, and won't have one in Heaven. So Phil goes off on how gays are "full of murder" and how they won't inherit the Kingdom of God, but ignores that part where Jesus Himself said that people like Phil won't go to Heaven.

Then high, blaming it on some Atheist agenda. The same thing would have happened regardless of what religion or lack there of he had. This has nothing to do with Atheist wanting to make Christians look bad, as there is plenty of outrage over what he said in many Christian circles... you do know most liberals are Christian as well. Yes, most Atheist tend to be liberal, but the largest voting block of Democrats and Greens are Christian. People who take the Bible as the literal word of God, and believe Jesus was serious when He said to help the needy and poor, that the rich won't go to Heaven, that blessed are the peacemaker and not the warmongering Republicans, that when you pray, to pray in secret and not make a show of it the way modern Conservatives do, that know the reason for the destruction of Sodom according to the Bible was that "she was a land of plenty and did nothing to help the needy and poor", basically full of modern Conservatives, that the thing with the Angels happened after the city was condemned to be destroyed and they were there to rescue Lot's family, before Lot pulled the father of the year by offering his young daughters (think Olson Twins) over the angelic warriors of God (think Conan the Barbarian and Rambo) with magical powers, rather than just a simple "no". Anyhow, plenty of Christians are upset at what Phil said, because it makes Christians look bad, he not only bashed gays, but thought blacks were fine under the old Jim Crow era laws, thought Nazis were Jesus free, though Jesus and the Bible was their main defense for all they did... He basically made the Conservative Christians look like they ignore the main teaching of Jesus which was to Love one another. Jesus hung out with the sinners and tax collectors and told them of the love of God, not how God is going to condemn them all to Hell. If Jesus was alive in modern day America, he'd be hanging out in San Francisco talking about the love of God, not fighting to deny them equal rights under the law.

And of course Shiny... The controversy with Chick-fil-a isn't so much what some stupid old rich man says, he also made it clear that was the position of the company as a whole. And that anti-gay money was going to organizations that actively campaign not only to make being gay illegal in the US, in other countries where it is gay and punishable by death, they campaign to keep the death penalty attached to it. That said, at least Siny agrees that A&E had no choice... though, based on past posts, I don't think Shiny sees that the whole modern day Conservative movement is driven by the greed factor, that modern Christian Conservatives are willing to toss out every government program to help the needy and the poor so that they can give tax breaks to the rich...

It's all a free publicity stunt. I'm sure A&E will cave in, or Phil will issue some semi apology, "like I still believe it is a sin, but I'm sorry I likened them to murderers and I'm sorry about offending any blacks, I was just noting my personal observations growing up" type thing and he'll continue to rake in millions, going against the very Jesus he claims to follow... and he'll be right back on.