Ineffective != Terrible

If it costs 1200 Euros (on average) to clear one mine, releasing 24 of these things to detonate ONE mine is still cheaper than other option. If one of these things detonates one landmine, perhaps one seven-year-old gets to keep her leg. Money well spent. Until the local population can afford Million-dollar landmine-clearing tanks these can make a small difference for relatively modest costs.

You are correct that the whirlygigs are more expensive than many landmines. Mines are cheap. Getting to the root of the problem and banning use and production of landmines is a greater issue.

This video may help to *promote attention to an ongoing global problem. Presently, Russia, the United States, Israel, India and Pakistan have still not signed up to the the Ottawa Treaty. A further issue is that many manufacturers of munitions, including mines, are heavily invested in by stock-brokers and pension funds. The BC Investment Management Corporation, for example, which manages investments for teachers' and public servants' pensions plans has in the past had as much as "$4.6 billion worth of stock in 251 corporations producing war materiel." There is money in war. People get paid to build landmines.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

Terrible idea. It's not systematic enough to clear any given area with certainty, and people may think of zones where these have been operating as 'clear' instead of as potential landmine areas. I think this invention has a great potential to increase the number of accidental landmine detonations, lost limbs and deaths.
Maybe it will explode a few, but when some of it's 'legs' get blown off it stops moving. Does someone go out there, risking his life and limbs in what is now a known minefield to fix it, or do you just leave it there? Because they may seem cheap, but 1 whirlydoohickey blown up per 1 landmine disarmed is hardly 'cheap', when some landmines cost under a dollar, and they may be spread out in the thousands in a given area.

Seems like it might be a cool way to at least thin out landmines so there was somewhat less risk to people that happen to wander into the minefield. If you want to reclaim the land though I think you have to do a systematic sweep, and I can't really see how you'd reduce the expenditure on that.

Terrible idea. It's not systematic enough to clear any given area with certainty, and people may think of zones where these have been operating as 'clear' instead of as potential landmine areas. I think this invention has a great potential to increase the number of accidental landmine detonations, lost limbs and deaths.

Maybe it will explode a few, but when some of it's 'legs' get blown off it stops moving. Does someone go out there, risking his life and limbs in what is now a known minefield to fix it, or do you just leave it there? Because they may seem cheap, but 1 whirlydoohickey blown up per 1 landmine disarmed is hardly 'cheap', when some landmines cost under a dollar, and they may be spread out in the thousands in a given area.

That's some pretty serious Systematic desensitization therapy right there. Kind of all or nothing, eh? You're either cured or wind up in a permanent fetal position.

>> ^My_design:

Wow, the "free thinkers" lash out.
Not a corporate shill, but work in a corporate environment. Not saying that corporate actions are always right, but you guys only ever want to tear down, and never propose how to fix it. Your own hatred blinds you to reality.
So F_ck Walmart, F_ck Target, F_ck Coke and Pepsi and all the other companies that make "ridiculous" profits at the expense of consumers and employees. Stop buying their crap, form a commune and move to the hills. Consumerism and free market are screwing up the country/planet right? So let's seize corporate profits, block them at every angle and get us back to the good old days, you know before Carnegie, Ford, JP Morgan, and Rockefeller. Hell before Edison while we're at it. Oh wait there has always been corporations doing business in the US. Oh well, enjoy your new life with the Amish.
No options for jobs?
Here's a 160 pages of options just for the 50 miles around Chicago:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobResults.aspx?lr=cbcb_ct&siteid=cb_ctnpqsb&use=all&s_rawword
s=Chicago&s_freeloc=Il&s_jobtypes=ALL&uJobsF
oundCount2%3Ajlrd=50&Submit=GO
There are always options. We tend to forget that just 50 years ago people were subsistence farming, living with 3 generations in a household, working 2 jobs, and no health insurance. Hell in some places that is still going on. But now we complain and strike because the manager bullies us and causes unnecessary stress (0:22) If that is really the case, then document it. It is called contributing to a hostile work environment and is covered under the sexual harassment laws in the US.
"Because I'm tired of working at a company where workers get cheated and cheaters get rewarded" What? Umm that would be a class action lawsuit like the ones that hit Walmart in the past.


For me it's much simpler. Requires very little thinking through, this hatred for all that Walmmart represents. The worst form of mega-corporate usurping of the individual, of regional infrastructure, local architecture....Walmart has killed the souls of so many small towns and has done it through a systematic cheapening of goods and services. The hydra is self-perpetuating with your help....One of her strongest tentacles is this inbred bitch's legal department working tirelessly to maintain the machine's tactics and contempt for the people who have bought their line and their sub-standard goods from a country that has gone from a fundamentally repressive government with the largest population of any country to one, massive sweatshop PLANETOID of human wage-slaves.

People have been groomed for accepting quantity over quality, convenience over consciousness.
Apologies for the harsh words, glad to hear you have nothing to do with this particular beast-I fucked Coke, Pepsi, Target, etc. years ago...Don't frequent any chain restaurants or purchase new cars either. Shop at thrift stores for clothing and order consumer goods online through "ma and pa" internet businesses.
From America, in America, but not OF America.

>> ^chingalera:

I have realized my own complicity in what appears to others to be a denial of human impact on the climate-
A more pressing dilemma than the human impact on the climate though would have to be the systematic programming of humans being born to grow up fucking stupid. "Stupid" because they are not taught how to arrive at conclusions through traditional methods of information gathering and dissemination....I. E. research, critical thinking, etc.
RATHER, from primary school through university, people are taught to be herded and indoctrinated with bullshit-thinking skills. When education is shit, people become idiots.
This is where the world is and will continue to remain until elections become something more than a fucking propaganda pep-rally of imbeciles who vote because it's a robotic function that means you care rather than an effectual process of healthy social evolution.
What we need to do is legalize homicide in applicable situations, beginning with a new holiday: Murder a Politician Day.


With NDAA and pending cyber-security legislation, I wouldn't upvote that comment with a 10-ft pole...

Shit. I guess I kinda just did.

>> ^chingalera:

I have realized my own complicity in what appears to others to be a denial of human impact on the climate-
A more pressing dilemma than the human impact on the climate though would have to be the systematic programming of humans being born to grow up fucking stupid. "Stupid" because they are not taught how to arrive at conclusions through traditional methods of information gathering and dissemination....I. E. research, critical thinking, etc.
RATHER, from primary school through university, people are taught to be herded and indoctrinated with bullshit-thinking skills. When education is shit, people become idiots.
This is where the world is and will continue to remain until elections become something more than a fucking propaganda pep-rally of imbeciles who vote because it's a robotic function that means you care rather than an effectual process of healthy social evolution.
What we need to do is legalize homicide in applicable situations, beginning with a new holiday: Murder a Politician Day.


Bam! well said!
yeah we teach our kids over and over that they are unique little snowflakes. the specialness. a whole species that thinks the world revolves around them.
yeah climate change at it's heart is a mass psychology issue.

I have realized my own complicity in what appears to others to be a denial of human impact on the climate-

A more pressing dilemma than the human impact on the climate though would have to be the systematic programming of humans being born to grow up fucking stupid. "Stupid" because they are not taught how to arrive at conclusions through traditional methods of information gathering and dissemination....I. E. research, critical thinking, etc.
RATHER, from primary school through university, people are taught to be herded and indoctrinated with bullshit-thinking skills. When education is shit, people become idiots.

This is where the world is and will continue to remain until elections become something more than a fucking propaganda pep-rally of imbeciles who vote because it's a robotic function that means you care rather than an effectual process of healthy social evolution.

What we need to do is legalize homicide in applicable situations, beginning with a new holiday: Murder a Politician Day.

Point 1: If by misquote, you mean substituted a larger term (religion) for a smaller one (churches), I suppose I did. But without religion, there -are- no churches. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Point 2: Texas has worked damned hard to earn its reputation as a major-league collection of wingnuts. I'm not sure how you can justify getting upset when that reputation is assumed to be true. You have a problem with the reputation, maybe you should start blaming the people who are going out of their way to earn it...like Rick Perry, or the Texas Board of Education. As long as the state is trying to rewrite history to eliminate reality's liberal bias, you're going to be stuck with that.

Point 3: Perhaps I should have slowed down and spent more time in the step-by-step logic...I really thought most people who read her could follow the shorthand, but I did indeed jump about a bit.

In many ways, churches are no different than any corporation. They exist as a means to concentrate funds and offer the controller(s) of those funds a method of avoiding personal responsibility for misuse of those funds. On top of that, churches pay no taxes, although they still make liberal use of publicly funded services, -and- in many cases, they keep lobbying for public funds to be handed over to them as well. Now add how many churches are politically active and advising their cult members how to vote, and you might begin to see why I refer to them all as corporate welfare queens. Or maybe not...I don't know if you're even going to try to follow it or not, and don't much care at this point.
>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??
This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.
Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.
Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.
But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).


No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??

This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.

Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.

Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.

But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

That's where you're wrong, Eric Winston. I only watch football for the injuries (aka, I don't watch it, I watch webclips), just like I only watch hockey matches for the fights; just like I only watch car races for the crashes. It's, arguably, human nature to be in awe of a horrific spectacle, and it's the same with being swept up in what the crowd is feeling.

But, let's call a spade a spade here. Football was born as a sport where people were injured or died as a result of playing the game. It was only after Roosevelt intervened that the sport changed into what one of my students lost his short term memory to.

Ever crouch down and ram your head at something with the full force of your body?
Why are injuries like this surprising?
Why does he act like he's not participating/supporting a sport that systematically abuses players for a profit?
Why the outrage over cheering an injury but the support of the system that throws people into situations that make injuries like this likely?

Don't try and pawn this off on me. It's not my "excuse". I'm closed only to one idea: of my being absolutely certain about anything. I'm not closed to any other idea, period. You have failed to convince me. That's why I don't accept your story. And after all this, you revealed yourself to be absolutely certain of your own judgement that your numinous experiences are coming from God.

Let me get this straight..you're completely closed to the idea of being absolutely certain of something. Think about that for a minute and see if you can spot the inherent contradiction contained within this idea.

If I say there is absolute truth, and someone says no there isn't, and I say are you absolutely sure about that?, this isn't a trivial question. That's what I used to think, that it was some kind of cheap trick, and ultimately meaningless. Don't be like I was and just dismiss this without giving it a great deal of thought. The fact is, you can't deny the idea of absolute truth without confirming it. It's not a cheap parlor cheap of logic, it is a revelation of the framework of reality, of how things really work. That there really is a certain truth, and everything you ultimately believe, flawed logic and all, ultimately points to it. It actually could be no other way. There is a ground for everything we know and understand. The atheist says though that's he is standing on air. The issue is that subjective beings can't know anything about objective reality so they grope around in the dark trying to understand what truth is. An atheism has no route to get beyond his subjective understanding. The only way you can understand truth then is by the light of revelation. IE, someone without objective understanding (an omniscient being) would have to enlighten you. If you've never seen light then you won't understand what darkness is. Jesus said if the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

What I believe is that you were not systematic in trying to understand your experience. When you woke up from it and figured out that you were being led down a path to insanity, you just wrote the whole thing off as being entirely in your mind. I would liken this to coming home one day and finding a group of thieves moving furniture out of your house and loading it into a truck. You ask them what they're doing and they say that they are a moving company and that you called them and set up an appointment 2 weeks ago to move you out, and don't you remember? Oh wow, you say, it must have skipped my mind! It looks like it was just a rash idea of mine, really sorry for this inconvenience! You then proceed to help them move your furniture back into your house.

As you're moving everything back in, you notice the door has been busted open and the house has been ransacked. You ask them about this and they say that just earlier you were here trying to let them into house but you couldn't find your key so you kicked the door in because you didn't want to keep them waiting. You then tore the house apart looking for your keys, and when you found them you left to go get something to eat and that's where you've been this whole time. Pondering this you decide that if you could forget about calling them in the first place then you could most certainly forget about doing all of those other things too.

So you finally get everything back in the house and you again apologize profusely for wasting their time, but as they are leaving, they say don't worry about it because we were never here. We're just part of a dream you're having. Goodbye! You think to yourself, considering the memory problems I've been having, this seems very reasonable. The next day a friend stops by and asks you what happened to your house. Oh, it was all a bad dream, you say. I apparently did all of this in my sleep, but it's over now, not to worry!

I don't know what your experience was; typically, they try to convince you that you're some kind of Messiah-like figure, or that reality is centered around you in some way. What I do know is that things happened to you which you cannot explain; signs and wonders, strange "coincidences", etc. These were the signposts in your journey that reinforced your paradigm and kept you on that road. You want to believe that it was all in your head rather than a strategic plan to destroy you, so you chalk it up to delusion. It wasn't all delusion, though; you were being herded down a path, probably with the goal of getting you to kill yourself, and it's only because they went too far that you woke up from that spell.

You have failed to convince me. That's why I don't accept your story.

I can't convince you of anything. This isn't an intellectual problem that you're having, it is an issue of your heart. Only God can convince you, but your heart is hardened towards Him and you refuse to come near to Him.

And after all this, you revealed yourself to be absolutely certain of your own judgement that your numinous experiences are coming from God.

That's just what I've been saying all along, that there is a certain truth, and God reveals it to those who seek Him. That truth is Jesus Christ. You've admitted that God could convince me, so it isn't an inherently irrational position.

All you're telling me is that you are convinced of something, and FWIW, I believe that you are. You have no grounds to believe that your human perceived conviction is warranted, especially given that you know of many other humans who are equally convicted about things that contradict what you believe. That alone should give you doubt about your convictions, as it gives me doubt. If it doesn't give you doubt, you're not being rational. What's more likely: that you alone are correct among all the millions of equally convicted people, or that all equally convicted people, including you, are wrong? What makes you so special?

Nothing makes me special; I simply responded to Gods calling. I can explain why people follow false religion in imitation of the true God, which is that Satan blinds the eyes of unbelievers so that they cannot know the truth about God. He backs up their experiences with supernatural signs and wonders so that they believe they are on the right path. Satan is an imitator of God:

2Co 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
2Co 11:15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

I DO doubt my own existence -- at least, I don't take it as fact that I exist. I could be a brain in a vat, etc. I don't accept my own senses either as categorical evidence. I live as if they're accurate because it's instinctive and it serves me to do so. Skepticism is not ignorance. Accepting something absolutely and uncritically is ignorance. You expect me to accept your word on faith. Why should I believe you? You're just some random person on their internet soapbox who claims to have visions of god. See how stupid it would be for me to change my life because of that? You wouldn't.

I don't think you're actually that skeptical, because I haven't really seen you critically examine your own presuppositions. You say that you don't have any preference for the truth, but that is clearly not true. You are very slanted in favor of a liberal/humanistic/naturalistic mindset, and you oppose any ideas which contradict it. You clearly do accept some things, like evolution for instance, as the gospel truth. This is very inconsistent with your statements about uncertainty. You've seen the human capacity to delude itself, so you keep saying, but you don't seem to question the thought process that leads you to any of these conclusions.

The reason I came to be a Christian, and no one ever witnessed to me by the way, is because I wanted to know the truth and God showed me what it is. I had sufficient evidence from God to give my life to Jesus, and then Jesus completely transformed me and made me a new person. I didn't expect any of that to happen. I had no idea what it would mean to become a Christian. But it did happen, supernaturally, and I found out later that it matched up to everything the bible said would happen. It's one thing to use confirmation bias to make a bunch of coincidence and happenstance into some kind of experience of God. It's another to be transformed at the core of your being into an entirely new person, losing all the negatives and gaining an unlimited supply of peace, joy, hope and love. Even more so when it happens within a moment in time. I've seen miracles, and I've seen things like demon possession. I am certain because God made me certain, but there is plenty of evidence to justify my certainty.

You are certain about God's revelation to you because God has given you certainty of it. That's tautology, if you're a rational agent.

Actually, it's circular reasoning. You will find that every inductive argument suffers from this problem. You cannot actually ultimately justify a single one of your beliefs to me. The conversation could go like this:

You: (objection to a stated fact or belief)
Me: Is that a rational statement?
You: Yes, it is logical.
Me: How do you know it is logical?
You: Because I reason it to be so.
Me: How do you know your reasoning is valid?
You: Because I reason it to be so.

Repeat ad infinitum. You've admitted that you can't trust your senses, and you just assume that you're rational because it's instinctive, which provides you no ultimate justification for anything you believe. That you're telling me it's wrong to use circular reason is absurd since everything you believe is based on it.

Circular reasoning is not necessarily fallacious because you cannot point to an ultimate authority for any claim without using it. Look at the issues this problem of induction causes when it comes to proving scientific theory:

"Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau note that “using the scientific method to judge the scientific method is circular reasoning”. Scientists attempt to discover the laws of nature and to predict what will happen in the future, based on those laws. However, per David Hume's problem of induction, science cannot be proven inductively by empirical evidence, and thus science cannot be proven scientifically. An appeal to a principle of the uniformity of nature would be required to deductively necessitate the continued accuracy of predictions based on laws that have only succeeded in generalizing past observations. But as Bertrand Russell observed, “The method of ‘postulating’ what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

You cannot use empirical evidence to prove empiricism is valid, just as you can't use the scientific method to prove the scientific method is valid. Therefore science cannot be proven scientifically! It needs an ultimate justification which cannot be proven inductively. Therefore, you would have to use a deductive argument by presupposing the uniformity of nature to justify the continued accuracy of the predictions of science. But again, just assuming the uniformity in nature leads you to the same problem. The only evidence you have that the future will be like the past is in the past. Therefore it would be fallacious reasoning to say the future will be like the past because of the past.

This is where the problem comes in for the atheist, because he must use viciously circular reasoning, which is always fallacious. I can point to God to justify logic, truth, the uniformity in nature, and my own rationality. These concepts don't make any sense in an atheistic worldview, because there is no way to justify them. My reasoning isn't viciously circular..I can point to an ultimate authority. Your reason is viciously circular because you must point to yourself as the authority.

You want God to be real so you deny all evidence even to other *possibilities*, let alone facts.

I didn't originally go looking for God. He tapped me on the shoulder. I didn't become a Christian because I wanted God to be real, I became a Christian because the evidence indicated He is real.

I don't want anything in particular to be real. I only want to be as sure as possible of what I do believe.

I don't think you want the Christian God to be real, and would prefer that He wasn't. What you can be sure of is that you cannot ultimately justify any of your beliefs.

Yes, of course a god could convince you, but just because you're convinced, doesn't mean it was God who did it. That would be a faulty syllogism. Minds can play the most amazing tricks on people. That's documented fact.

How is it that when you have evidence that confirms your belief, it's faulty, but when you reject that evidence, it's rational? Just because you can potentially falsify an idea doesn't mean it has been falsified. I have a path to the truth, as you've admitted. God could make me certain, and He could reveal truth, so it isn't irrational to believe it, considering the overwhelming evidence that I have received, and continue to receive, each and every day. When God touches your life, you have a justified true belief in Him. In every case, when God makes someone certain, they are going to justified in saying that they're certain. You would say all these people are delusional, but you have no way to be able to tell the difference. Only the individual could really know that they've been touched by God. The only way you could find out is if you were yourself touched by God. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along. I can't convince you, but God can. He loves you and He is waiting for you to soften your heart and seek His face. That is the only thing which will prove or disprove my claim.


>> ^messenger:

stuff

There's a reason America doesn't trust the mainstream media anymore and it not just one organization:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/157589/distrust-media-hits-new-high.aspx?ref=image

Yes, Fox has an obvious conservative bias and most of the other networks have an obvious liberal bias. If you want proof of a liberal bias, watch the Univision forum interview with President Obama:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81470.html

Contrasting it to the softball interviews he usually gets, it's amazing to watch the president get grilled like that. Amazing because if you've been relying on the mainstream press for your information, you have forgotten what real journalism looks like. It's also proof positive of the free ride that President Obama has been getting since 2008. Yes Fox News is guilty of the very same thing on the other side of it.

But it's almost criminal when you consider how the mainstream press has been carrying water for President Obamas narrative about the video being the cause of the Libyan embassy attack, when it was obvious from the start it was a terrorist attack. I think they've been suppressing the story so as not to damage his re-election chances. What I mean by that is they didn't want to tread on the campaign narrative of President Obama being some kind of foreign policy giant, and that he had the Muslim problem solved. Obviously he hasn't solved that problem, and killing Osama Bin Laden didn't defeat Al Qeada. His systematic withdrawal of American influence from the region has left a power vacuum that groups like the Muslim brotherhood and Hezbollah have been more than happy to fill. Coupled with the Iranian nuclear threat and the failure of the sanctions to stop them, you have an unmitigated disaster on foreign policy, but out of the mainstream press you hear not a peep. If any of this happened under Bush the press would have murdered him but in this case they are running defense because they want to keep their guy in office. Considering all of this I don't think they have much credibility left.

Let us not forget the nice little side effect of systematically stripping the right to vote from the poor and minorities.

>> ^lv_hunter:

Looks like a scrap yard?


It's most likely Alang, a shipbreaking town in India. Old ships are driven ashore during high tide, then systematically dismantled for scrap. The two partially dismantled hulks beside it provide further evidence that this was an intentional beaching.