You have to define terms when talking about such things, which usually makes talking about them on internet forums hard, and that is why I stopped commenting there because I saw the conversation tending to be negative.

While the nature of Buddhism is complex, no doubt, I garner most of the basic precepts of Buddhism. For instance, Karma, is not part of divine salvation but of ones life. There is nothing a higher power can do to restore you Karma as it is the direct action of your life. Karma is one of the essential elements of the rebirth cycle, so the fact that it is the direct consequence of your life, forgiveness (for an over all moralistic stand point, not living at peace with your neighbor) isn't available.

More over, Buddhists do not believe in the unchanging soul. An idea steaming from Dharma, that there is no such thing as self. This is a small but important point as this basic notion isn't really applicable to most people whom live in the west. Self reliance, determination, and ultimately identification all point to a one unique self...it is just the western way. This doesn't go to say that an American couldn't be a Buddhist, but the culture here is very toxic to it.

Anyway, mostly, from my perspective, Buddhism is about fundamentally different ideals that Christianity. Christianity stresses the need for an external power to rescue you from yourself. The Buddhist doesn't belief in self, or salvation, and as a consequence, forgiveness (we are talking about moralist forgiveness not about your neighbor stealing your car). I think this is where my point was being missed. Of course most every religion has a "golden rule", be at peace mindset, that wasn't what I was addressing though.

In reply to this comment by enoch:
In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
I have always found Buddhism rather neat personally. But I have to draw issue with your statement of forgiveness as a fundamental precept. The middle path doesn't usually care about forgiveness because it leads with the idea that people owe you things. The middle path is separate from such concerns. The real problem I would see with most Buddhist interjections into the life an any American is really, we don't want a middle path. We want stuff, to be the best, to life for this life! Buddhism isn't about that, it is about the flow of this life into the next, preparing yourself for the next phase. Living for the moment, and being a sports super star is incompatible with that world view...imo.

And what I heard from Hume was concern, not looking his nose down. Think of it from his perspective, he really things Christ could help this persons life, and that is how he said it. He thought, either in ignorance or wisdom, that Buddhism couldn't save him from his current situation and offered an answer. One could say it is out of place of a news anchor to not read news from his sheet however...but news hasn't been about that in ages.

And you don't hear about Buddhist extreamist because the media you listen to doesn't care.

http://www.tamileelamnews.com/cgi-bin/news/exec/view.cgi/1/1557

i dont think you truly understand buddhism my friend.
many people take a myopic approach when dealing with different religions.it is really just a perspective thing i would presume.but buddhism is a far more rich religion than you are alluding to in your comment.
so just like christianity may have many variables,facets and understanding for you due to you actually BEING a christian,buddhism in all its variables offers a rich contextualization of theosophy.

while never confirmed by tangible evidence but only by hints and historical references there are some theologians that believe that jesus not only studied with the assenes and greeks but also buddhists.which if you read the gospels it is not so large a leap considering much of jesus's teaching have a buddhists element.
and yes..forgiveness is paramount.

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
I have always found Buddhism rather neat personally. But I have to draw issue with your statement of forgiveness as a fundamental precept. The middle path doesn't usually care about forgiveness because it leads with the idea that people owe you things. The middle path is separate from such concerns. The real problem I would see with most Buddhist interjections into the life an any American is really, we don't want a middle path. We want stuff, to be the best, to life for this life! Buddhism isn't about that, it is about the flow of this life into the next, preparing yourself for the next phase. Living for the moment, and being a sports super star is incompatible with that world view...imo.

And what I heard from Hume was concern, not looking his nose down. Think of it from his perspective, he really things Christ could help this persons life, and that is how he said it. He thought, either in ignorance or wisdom, that Buddhism couldn't save him from his current situation and offered an answer. One could say it is out of place of a news anchor to not read news from his sheet however...but news hasn't been about that in ages.

And you don't hear about Buddhist extreamist because the media you listen to doesn't care.

http://www.tamileelamnews.com/cgi-bin/news/exec/view.cgi/1/1557

i dont think you truly understand buddhism my friend.
many people take a myopic approach when dealing with different religions.it is really just a perspective thing i would presume.but buddhism is a far more rich religion than you are alluding to in your comment.
so just like christianity may have many variables,facets and understanding for you due to you actually BEING a christian,buddhism in all its variables offers a rich contextualization of theosophy.

while never confirmed by tangible evidence but only by hints and historical references there are some theologians that believe that jesus not only studied with the assenes and greeks but also buddhists.which if you read the gospels it is not so large a leap considering much of jesus's teaching have a buddhists element.
and yes..forgiveness is paramount.

Hey everyone. I have seen the whole show, there is no debate about whether this is a set-up because if you'd seen it all after she storms off both the man and woman come out on stage and perform a musical number with him. They showed the whole thing on Paramount Comedy a couple of weeks ago.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
In the modern world, things should not come to violence. It goes to show we are so truly evolved! How terrible we have become.

It's not right to condemn violence indiscriminately, after all, it is part of the human condition, and I don't consider eradicating any kind of violence as an unconditionally good thing, much less paramount to human evolution.

That being said, yeah, that's one terribly sloppy execution.

"Make sure that every highschool graduate is college-ready and career-ready."

That's a point I do not share entirely. Preparing them only for college or a career leads to a streamlining effect that might turn them into efficient workers, but pathetic persons. Schools should prepare you for life first and foremost. Some classes might be completely unneccessary for your job/college qualification, but paramount to shaping your personality.

I'm only mentioning this, because our universities used to offer a decent humanistic education until they were streamlined to produce "a capable workforce" instead. Schools are transformed this way as well, spitting out assembly-line robots incapable of forming their own opinion.

I can't help but think this is a viral ad from Paramount, but still "That was...absolutely...thrilling." nonetheless.

I just watched the clip here today and it made me want to watch it, looks great.

^ Indeed, and I wasn't trying to be contrary, just pointing out that in certain conditions people are not as rational as one would hope and you need a fall back for that. Pure democracy is just as capable of making horrible choices which is why a constitution, and the more basic idea of an insoluble social agreement is paramount.

Capitalism isn't the best way for everything.

If you want iPods, and furnature, and cars, and things that aren't paramount to our survival, yes it works pretty well.

If you want health care, food, safety, education, transportation, and housing, it's a pretty shitty system.

And it is far from being the most efficient.

Capitalism is the absolute best at one thing: making rich people richer at the expense of everybody else.

sadly,fundamentalism is on the rise.
people so thoroughly indoctrinated that to question one book of the bible is to refute all of the bible.
i know to many atheists this seems contradictory but not to the fundamentalist.
for a fundamentalist to look at the book of genesis and say "um..no way" is paramount to them refuting god,or jesus.which is something they are not prepared to do.
so they SEEK out venues such as these to assuage their uncertainty and doubt and give them a sense of security.
here is my inherent problem with this:
Ken Ham plays on this insecurity and exploits it for his own aggrandization and profit.using dark ages mentality to manipulate those who are desperate for answers,by using misinformation and outright lies.
so when the fundamentalist hears contrary information fundamentalists decry "SATAN".
how ironic and sad that the very tactics employed by the church during the dark ages before the reformation are gaining ground for a certain group of believers.
it is either from god or the devil.
so any conflicting information to the bible is deemed "from the devil".
i no longer attempt to engage with a fundamentalist.it is a exercise in futility.
when i am confronted with christian fundamentalists,which is often due to my work,all i do is quote the very text they hold dear.
"and jesus said unto the people of gallilea.there will be many that come in my name,and they will hold sway over the world,but they will be false and not from my father".
then i ask "how big and influential is your church?"

They recently rebranded the "paramount comedy channel" in the uk to "comedy central" (with no ownership change or anything) and all of a sudden these comedy central videos aren't blocked anymore! Yayses!

I don't see why you have to assume that this confrontation was scripted. Gordon Ramsay uses harsh language and rough methods because they lead to results fast, which is what his shows are usually about. There's a line of teaching in school which uses the same model of tearing down before building up; where kids' own ego usually stops them from effectively getting anything into their heads, and need them to be pulled down from the clouds before they'll even consider not being all-knowing and always being right.
In this regard, these chefs are pretty similar. They run failing businesses and most of the time they're the ones who aren't doing their jobs properly, and while you might not like Ramsay's attitude or his disrespectful behaviour, he does get drastic results fast. Really, sometimes all a person needs is a good talking to. Especially when they somehow expect to be specially treated without having done anything to deserve it.
Like in this case, where the chef went way over the line. From my point of view, he should be the object of our scorn instead of Ramsay. He knew what to expect from this show when he signed up for it, if not by previous episodes or television stuff Ramsay has done, then from what the producers explained before filming started. He was the one who came there for help, and he was the one who specifically asked Ramsay to help him. Being able to take criticism is paramount, and he seemed to have failed quite readily in that regard.

I remember watching these shorts on paramount comedy channel, between shows. I actually couldn't stand bruno for long. Not sure i like him all that much now.. dunno what it is, he just seems too intent on annoying people. As though he's not trying to expose bigotry as just annoying people.

>> ^ziggystardust:
There is a well known study that basically boils down humans' facial expressions down to 156 different facial expressions. They originally brought in Brad Pitt to make those 156 facial expressions. Those expressions didn't cover everything, so that's when they reenacted everything shot for shot.


Yeah, I read about how they had that as a starting point on cgsociety.com. And I'm sure that logic holds true for getting a fairly good approximation of any expression but it certainly undersells how much we can do with our face, and how subtle it can be.

There's a website that paramount has launched just for the special effects (gee, do you think they're proud of them?) http://www.benjaminbuttonfx.com/ Which covers these and other effects in the film.

One part of the film that did leap out at me while I watched it was the 'youthening' effects, they were obviously an effect. Also, they weren't done by Digital Domain, they were farmed out as they didn't have the time... and I think it shows. The quality of the aging effects vs the obviousness of the youthening ones is quite marked.

OK, Ordinary People wasn't much better but...

1980 Ordinary People - Paramount - Ronald L. Schwary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture