Why is shit like this presented with such reverence? For all the ceremony and posh suits these are criminal thugs. They aren't just some other culture that does things it's own way and has finally accepted the guy as one of their own, they know exactly what they are and what they're doing.

I'm sure he got a very interesting look at the way a very secretive society is run. There will be a lot that he's seen and photographed that the rest of the world won't know about or have seen before. It's interesting, I get that, but I think it would be all the more interesting if juxtaposed with the bad stuff. Show the photos of them there, all solemn in their suits, but don't forget the kids who are starving to death as their parents rot in prison or are killing themselves slowly in some disgusting drug den somewhere, paying for everything the Yakuza have.

Everything they have is built on death, pain and suffering of others.

I really love this song. "Until You're mine" is an old Ceremony song from the MySpace days. All of Paul's work is amazing. Thank you so much for always upvoting his work!

Calling people bigots when you have no clue only indicates the depth of your unfortunate, unnecessary and willful ignorance.

The law in Indiana is meant to keep gay people from suing those who refuse to participate in their ceremonies. The point of my comment, which you fail to comprehend, is that it also protects you from lunatics like those from the WBC.

But good job with that chaos-spreading.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

BTW PlayhousePal's ascension ceremony is still happening - you can guess that the holiday season has slowed down our graphic design department!

Well, historically, he's armed with a big ass club (mace) that he's supposed to bash heads with should a fight break out. I was just surprised he was "packin' heat".

I always knew he was in charge of Parliament security, but a lot of positions that are 100s of years old tend to be completely ceremonial, like the Speaker of the House.

It's like finding out the British "Beefeaters" (Yeoman Warders, the Royal bodyguards) actually have UZI machine guns under their hats and silenced Glocks stuck in their waistcoats when all they ever do is really conduct tours.

Turns out the officer who took the shooter out was a retired RCMP officer employed in the largely ceremonial role of Sergeant-At-Arms. A role I was surprised to find out was armed.

I don't have any real objections to him being armed, but S-A-A is more-or-less a glorified security guard. The only weapon you see him with is a bad-ass looking mace. In the US, the S-A-A is the guy you see announcing the arrival of the President in the House of Representatives before the State of the Union addresses. You can imagine how much security the shooter would have had to passed to get the same place in D.C.

Some of the questions right now are about how the fuck the guy got to the doors where Parliament sits largely unopposed. I mean, it's Canada, the last attack on a Prime Minister consisted of a pie to the face, but you'd think there'd be a metal detector checkpoint and/or a couple Mounties milling about.

Then again, unauthorized crossings at our shared border -up until 9/11- were protected mostly by traffic cones.

I stand corrected.
I do recall reading that he did say, at one point, that aside from 'putting God above all else', the golden rule (treat others as you would have them treat you) is the most important thing to learn from religion...this seems to be at odds with supporting the bigotry and hatred of the 'law' (of god), although as I read it (what little I've read of it) the bible should be for telling the reader how they should act, not how they should force everyone else to act. I guess I ignored those parts that said you have to stone the infidels and such. :-)

There are three parts to the Old Testament law, civil, ceremonial and moral. The civil and ceremonial laws were given to nation of Israel only, not to Christians. The ordinances God gave to Israel regarding civil judgments, food and drink and the like are not applicable to Christians.

EDIT: And what happened to 'he died to absolve us of our sins'? If that's supposed to work, then there's no sin after the crucifixion, no? Is that something else I'm mistaken about, or was it a one time absolution only for those present at that time, with everyone else still hosed? If sin is gone, why care if your son is 'doing it' wrong, he'll still go to heaven, right?

Jesus provided what is called the "substitutionary atonement". Meaning, that Jesus took your place (and mine) on the cross and received the punishment for sin that we both deserve. He took the entirety of the punishment on Himself and through His sacrifice we can receive forgiveness for sins. He suffered and died vicariously for us, and through faith in Him we receive a blank slate and attain a perfect standing before God. His righteousness is credited to our account as if it were our own, though there is nothing we could do to earn it; It is only received through faith.

Jesus provided the atonement for all sin, but it isn't universally applied; It must be received by faith. When you stand before God and account for your life, you will be judged for your sins in one of two ways; either by your righteousness or Christs.

If this one counts as a dupe or not (last few seconds are different), but

http://videosift.com/video/Baby-T-Rex-throws-out-ceremonial-first-pitch

Some disconnected thoughts:

I didn't mean to say what you weren't saying. Apologies. I do like what you said here, "for her to use her basic human right to not be discriminated against as a woman to leverage those men into a difficult position, sounds like a crappy thing to do." Yes, a crappy thing. I think we'd better get used to it; at least in the United States where people want to adhere to the letter of the law when it comes to asserting their rights.

Am I wrong in assuming you live outside of the States? If so that makes it easy for me to understand your stance on religious rights being unequal with other rights.

I am not insisting that discrimination be protected. Far from it. If you were being discriminated against you would want me in your corner. I detest discrimination. What I find interesting about all of the cases you mentioned, the only reason a gay couple has given for asking the state to enforce the anti-discrimination laws is over the issue of marriage and the issue of marriage alone. The photographer and bakers apparently served the gay community in other capacities from their storefronts without incident. No lawsuits, no nothing. I think we have to ask 'why?" What is it specifically about marriage that would cause a Christian (or a Muslim, or any number of religions for that matter), to say, "I can't participate in that?" I suspect that if the couple in question had been a man and two or three women getting married that the business owners response would have been the same - that is not our understanding of marriage, sorry we can't in good conscience go there." At the risk of repeating myself, their refusal isn't about the people they refused. It is specifically about the act of marriage.

As an aside, I find it ironic to the nth degree that the State of Oregon is trying to legally compel the bakery owners to participate in a ceremony that is illegal in the State of Oregon. Marriage among gays in Oregon is illegal. Sigh. This is why I wish religion, of any sort, would get out of the business of telling people what to do. I would like to see a withdrawal from the legislation of religious tenets that are not in line with the US Constitution. Then gays could marry freely in this country and this argument could be put away.

Many of the problems in this world could be resolved if the religionists didn't feel like they needed to make everyone outside of their religion believe and behave like they do. As I see it, in a free society, a religious belief should not be able compel those outside that belief to do anything.

You may be familiar with openly gay author/blogger Andrew Sullivan who has written about this subject. He says: I would never want to coerce any fundamentalist to provide services for my wedding – or anything else for that matter – if it made them in any way uncomfortable. The idea of suing these businesses to force them to provide services they are clearly uncomfortable providing is anathema to me. I think it should be repellent to the gay rights movement as well.

There is, of course, extensive writing on this issue by all sides and we may never be able to untangle it here but I have enjoyed getting your perspective.



“what is to stop the members of Westboro Baptist Church from showing up at a bakery run by gays and demand they cater an anti-gay event?” answer; Anti-discrimination laws.

I hope you're right. I hope we never have an opportunity to find out. But here is, in part, the text of Oregon's law:

Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation, without any distinction, discrimination or restriction on account of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status or age if the individual is 18 years of age or older.

"Religion" doesn't not have a special designation of 'unless' in there. I can see those Westboro Baptist a-holes notice that and will have some gay bakers baking a cake for them every day of the week.

All of this discussion is really a digression of my initial post which was to say: If our communities were stronger, if we'd risk more relationally, if we'd put down the electronics and get to know each other, it sure would be a lot easier to get along. We would have less use for the legal system to resolve our differences.

Let me ask you, have you ever seen a law change someone's heart? I haven't.

Essentially that's already how it is in a lot of the world.

When I got married in NZ we had a secular wedding that was essentially a glorified marriage licence signing.

When my friends got married they had a religious ceremony that was.... essentially a glorified marriage licence signing.

As far as the state is concerned, you're married when you sign the documentation. Whatever else you do around that (secular, religious, whatever) is irrelevant.

As for gay weddings and churches, no-one is suggesting forcing churches to perform gay marriages. But once again, this is really, really simple. If you run a business*, you cannot discriminate against either your customers or employees on the basis of ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation.


* and no, there is no special exemption for your business if your business includes art.

Hi voodooV..sorry it took me so long to reply.

you're committing another logical fallacy here. Argument from ignorance. just because you can't think of any other reason for morality doesn't prove god did it.

The fallacy you mentioned doesn't apply. The argument isn't for Gods existence, the argument is that atheism is incoherent because it has no foundation for morality, among other reasons. Ravi asked the question, without God what are the Ontic referrants for reality?

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

To answer your question though. Survival...pure survival is pretty much the foundation of morality. what behavior ensures a long, prosperous and happy life? That's your morality right there. And it's all based on logic and reason, not an imaginary god.

is it better to be a dick to someone or is it better to work with other people. hrm...which ensures a higher probability of success in your endeavors.

is better in the long run to help or to hurt. Which ensures a greater likelyhood that people will be willing to help YOU out when you need it.

virtually everything that we consider moral today is the evolution (gasp) of instinctual rules we've learned over the millions (not thousands) of years that ensure a longer, happier life.

What you're talking about is pragmatism, which is to say that if it works then it is the best way to do things. Yet plenty of people have led long, prosperous and happy lives by exploiting other people for their gain. That's what works for them, so why shouldn't I emulate that standard of behavior instead of being self-sacrificing? Some of the most successful people who have ever lived got there by being terrible human beings. Basically, your standard of survival isn't about what is right, but what is right for me and that is entirely arbitrary. It also is an incoherent standard for morality.

Which is why only two of your commandments still hold up as secular laws.

I forget where I learned this but even biblical morality can be traced back to rules that made sense, at the time, that ensured survival. I think it has been shown that many of the biblical rules involving not eating certain foods can be traced back to diseases or some other logical reason, but hey, we didn't have an understanding of these pesky little things called bacteria and microorganisms back then so when you ate a certain food and died, that wasn't science, it was your imaginary sky god who was angry with you.

What's really interesting about that is that Moses was educated as an Egyptian prince, which was the most advanced country in the world at the time. He would have certainly been exposed to their medical knowledge, but you won't find a shred of that in the bible. The Egyptians were doing things like applying dung to peoples wounds, whereas the Laws of Moses detailed procedures for disease control, like hand washing and quarantine procedures, as well as public sanitation, and dietary laws which prevented the spread of parasites. They were thousands of years ahead of their time; we only started washing our hands to control disease in the past 200 years.

Even your fear and hatred of homosexuality and abortion can be easily explained by survival. When your village only numbered in the hundreds or maybe thousands and simple diseases and winters wiped out LOTS of people, discouraging homosexuality and abortion is actually a pretty good idea when the survival of your species is at stake. But when you've got advanced medicine and we've got the whole food and shelter thing dealt with and our population is now 7 billion. the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing just isn't necessary anymore. In fact, it's becoming a problem. and Once again, survival will dictate our morality. If we do nothing to combat overpopulation and resources become an issue, I guarantee you that large families will eventually have a negative stigma attached to them until the situation is resolved.

You're talking to a former agnostic who once approved of homosexuality and abortion. I am not afraid of it, and I don't hate the people doing it. This is a clash of presuppositions; if there isn't a God then I couldn't give you an absolute reason why people cannot have homosexual relationships or murder their unborn children. If we're all just glorified apes contending for limited resources, then in that paradigm it may be necessary to cull the herd. I think the appropriate response though to someone contending we should eliminate vast swaths of the human populace to save the planet is, "you first".

But God is in control and this is His planet, and since He is still creating human beings, He will provide the resources to take care of them. It's the iniquity of mankind which is limiting the resources when the truth is that we have way more than enough to take care of everyone. Take for example the fact that over 30 thousand people starve to death every day. Is that because we don't have enough food? Actually, we have more than enough food yet we waste about 1/3 of the world food supply every year. The gross world product in 2012 was over 84 trillion dollars, more than enough to feed, clothe, house and vaccinate every single person on the planet. Those people die not because there isn't enough, but because the wickedness of man.

Don't ask me though, ask an anthropologist or sociologist. They've been studying this stuff for decades. I'm sure you could even find an anthropologist/sociologist that believes in god and they'd still say the same thing. our understanding of reality changes....as does morality. no one takes seriously the old biblical rules about stoning unruly kids, working the sabbath, and wearing clothing of two types of fabric anymore. So why should we listen other outdated biblical rules that don't apply anymore. As countless others of sifters have already informed you, you have the burden of proof and you haven't met it yet.

Call me when someone discovers a disease or some other problem that arises when you mix two fabrics and we'll revisit those rules k?

God has three kinds of laws, moral civil and cermonial. The rules you're referring to were civil and ceremonial laws for Israel and not for the rest of the world. They have no application today because they were connected to the Old Covenant God had with Israel. God has a New Covenant with the whole world that doesn't include those laws. The moral laws of God do not change with time, or ever. And although we fancy ourselves as more enlightened today, the reality of the world we live in tells us that human nature hasn't changed one bit. Human nature is every bit as ugly and self serving as it always has been. If you peel back the thin veneer of civility you will find a boiling pot of iniquity.

Stop committing basic logical fallacies and you might learn this stuff for yourself You haven't ever said anything that isn't easily invalidated by a simple logical fallacy or hasn't already been debunked long ago.

It's easy to speak in generalities; if I have committed a logical fallacy, then specifically point it out. The one that you detailed earlier did not apply.

Do you watch the Atheist Experience videos Shiny? because every time I watch one of the videos and listened to the same old tired theist "arguments" over and over again. I'm always reminded of you because you just aren't saying anything new. If you're serious about understanding why your ideas just don't pan out and you're not just trolling, you should seriously watch those.

I've watched the show, and again, I was a lifelong agnostic before becoming a Christian. I was pretty far left and would have probably fit in well with the lot of you not too many years ago. So, this is all to say that I understand where you're coming from and why you think and believe the way you do, because I used to think and believe in the same ways. Your mindset isn't a mystery to me. What I've learned about it is that God has to reveal Himself to a person before they will know anything about Him. Everyone gets some revelation and it is up to them to follow it. I received the revelation that there is a God and I pursued that for many years until He revealed Himself to me through His Son Jesus Christ. He has revealed Himself to you and everyone else on this website in some form or fashion. You would be shocked to hear some of the revelation people have received and turned away from, or rationalized away later. Statistics show that 10 percent of self professing atheists pray, and that is because they are unable to within themselves completely deny the revelation that they have received. I guarantee you there are atheists on this board who wrestle with all of this but since it isn't something atheists talk about (or would admit to publicly) you would never know it, that you're all keeping a lid on the truth.

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Olympics' opening ceremony in Sochi, Russia.

Also, it needs to be said, that although the S.African interpreter is probably completely faking it, sign language is actually different from country to country, just like speaking/writing language, so a reall S.A interpreter might not make sense to a US interpreter either. (Not saying the guy at the Mandela ceremony is real, but a real translater might be nonsensical to the rest of the worlds hearing impaired as well..)

"The Sam Adams Award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers, to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistle-blower during the Vietnam War, and takes the physical form of a "corner-brightener candlestick". Many recipients have been whistle-blowers. The 2012 Award was *presented at a ceremony at the Oxford Union in January 2013." -WIKI

*To one, Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by lurgee.