the concept that an R has to vote R is akin to mental illness. a serious disfunction in preception.

when Mitch the Turtle was up for re-election, he polled at 13% for how well KY citizens thought he did his job but 26% said they would vote for him (at the time of the poll).

that translates to 1/4 of KYians unable to conceive having a choice. Cult over civilization.

that's f'n stupid¹⁰.

how could a Blue be WORST than 3/4 awful? seems real, really, really pessimistic. In many Red states, it is still 40% Blue. wouldn't that mean 40% failure rates across the communities? sincerely doubt most people could pick 40/100 Blues out a crowd, even at a RATM concert.

It's fodder from the bull shute.

I've never read his book(?), but this seems to be well covered by the precept "the map is not the terrain". What's in our heads is clearly NOT physical reality, but merely a model of it.

I thought that was rather obvious when I first heard it in the 5th grade.

Because nobody really cares about voting up or down OR, it's some unilateral criteria vs. concept dysfunction, gotta be one of the two.

I thought this offering profoundly dull and the listless strains left me uninspired yet voted it up for the obvious appreciation derived from it by its submitter.....It's yer basic golden rule scenario intrinsic in every healthy sentient and central in every world religion or operational societal precept. Humans being.

@lantern53
your comment is so full of ignorance you should feel shame for even posting it.
disagree with chomsky is a fine position,many do,but to imply that he is not one of the most quoted and respected intellectuals on the planet is just plain stupid.

are you suggesting what america has is capitalism?
well then i submit that what america has in NOT capitalism but rather state-run capitalism or to be more accurate:corporate socialism

the problems with capitalism are well known,well understood and well documented.the problems america is experiencing now are only a mystery to those who are ignorant and rely on the sensationalist,propagandized corporate media which does nothing to inform them but rather everything to obfuscate the reality.
why? because the very corporations who steal and plunder the american working class are the very ones who bring them their daily dose of propagandized bullshit.
lap it up doggy boy...it will help ya grow into a proud and clueless corporate slave.

chomsky is a libertarian socialist.a position he has stated over and over.the problem arises when people do not even understand the terms he is speaking about,because you are correct lantern,words have meaning and one the precepts of successful propaganda is to change the meanings of words.

we need more people like chomsky who challenge the propaganda and indotcrination.people such as chomsky are not only vital but necessary.

disagree with chomsky's premise all you like but a ad hominems and straw man do not an argument break.

he could be a full blown anarchist who dabbled in black magic but it would not make his words any less true.
just because you do not LIKE what somebody is saying does not make those statements untrue.

where is the flaw in his argument?
what inaccurate statements has he made?
what historical references did he embellish?

please understand lantern i am not attacking you in any fashion.i am simply pointing out that chomsky's work has been rigorously combed over,his sources checked and vetted and found to be exceptional in their execution.

disagree with his conclusions but do so with facts,sources and a well thought out response.
knee jerk emotional arguments make you look ill-informed.

Hey @shinyblurry. What I can tell is your church failed to teach you how to ignore the supernatural brainwashing bullshit that all religions teach you, and how to steer clear of the completely fabricated nonsense that will doom you to a life of believing in hocus-pocus that divides all people, has started endless conflicts and murdered millions of people all for absolutely fuckall.

Reality 1:1

And the real world said to him "Truly, turly, I say to you, to run as fast as you can from anyone who believes in Jesus, because those people are completely fucked up and are going to destroy everything and turn people into total assholes"

To understand reality, you may have to sit in a quiet room and think to yourself "hey self! What's up with believing in something that has zero proof of ever being true even in the slightest? Like, are you that fucking numb?"


>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^Fletch:
Hey, it's the Minecraft trailer music!
I want to say this is no more wacky than any other religions, but my frame of reference is as a confirmed Lutheran , so it does seem a lot wackier. God needs a secret handshake and password so he knows you're cool... that's just comedy gold. I want to start seeing "Hey Mitt! What's the secret handshake?" signs at rallies.

My last day ever in a church was the day I was confirmed. My mom made me a deal that if I completed the classes and shit I could decide on my own whether to go back. I didn't believe in magic then, and I don't believe in it now. Did it for mom.

Hey @Fletch, thank you for sharing this. What I can tell you is that your church failed to teach you the most important thing, which is how to have a personal relationship with God. Rituals and classes don't make you a Christian. To be a Christian you have to be born again;
John 3:3
Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
This is a supernatural rebirth, a complete recreation making you into a new man. It isn't something you learn about, it is something the Holy Spirit works within you when you truly accept Jesus into your heart. A man or a church can't do this for you; that's why confirmation, and other such rituals, are completely meaningless and ultimately a stumbling block to anyone who doesn't know Christ. This is why you left the Lutheran church in the first place, because following their precepts didn't bring you to know God personally. You said it yourself; you don't believe in magic. That says it all. This is the tragedy of many who grow up in Christian homes, who turn their back on what they presume is a dead faith, because they were never taught how to have a experiential relationship with a living God.
To know God is to Him personally. You could pray: "Jesus, if you're everything the bible says you are, I will follow you". If you can't go that far, simply ask if what I've said is true. God will show you, if you sincerely want to know. You managed to pass through the Christian religion missing the entire point of why it even exists. That is, to have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe, and the lover of your soul. God bless.

>> ^Fletch:

Hey, it's the Minecraft trailer music!
I want to say this is no more wacky than any other religions, but my frame of reference is as a confirmed Lutheran , so it does seem a lot wackier. God needs a secret handshake and password so he knows you're cool... that's just comedy gold. I want to start seeing "Hey Mitt! What's the secret handshake?" signs at rallies.


My last day ever in a church was the day I was confirmed. My mom made me a deal that if I completed the classes and shit I could decide on my own whether to go back. I didn't believe in magic then, and I don't believe in it now. Did it for mom.


Hey @Fletch, thank you for sharing this. What I can tell you is that your church failed to teach you the most important thing, which is how to have a personal relationship with God. Rituals and classes don't make you a Christian. To be a Christian you have to be born again;

John 3:3

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

This is a supernatural rebirth, a complete recreation making you into a new man. It isn't something you learn about, it is something the Holy Spirit works within you when you truly accept Jesus into your heart. A man or a church can't do this for you; that's why confirmation, and other such rituals, are completely meaningless and ultimately a stumbling block to anyone who doesn't know Christ. This is why you left the Lutheran church in the first place, because following their precepts didn't bring you to know God personally. You said it yourself; you don't believe in magic. That says it all. This is the tragedy of many who grow up in Christian homes, who turn their back on what they presume is a dead faith, because they were never taught how to have a experiential relationship with a living God.

To know God is to Him personally. You could pray: "Jesus, if you're everything the bible says you are, I will follow you". If you can't go that far, simply ask if what I've said is true. God will show you, if you sincerely want to know. You managed to pass through the Christian religion missing the entire point of why it even exists. That is, to have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe, and the lover of your soul. God bless.

Ayn Rand's Influence on Alan Greenspan
In The Age of Turbulence, Alan Greenspan describes the influence that Ayn Rand had on his intellectual development.

Ayn Rand became a stabilizing force in my life. It hadn't taken long for us to have a meeting of the minds -- mostly my mind meeting hers -- and in the fifties and early sixties I became a regular at the weekly gatherings at her apartment. She was a wholly original thinker, sharply analytical, strong-willed, highly principled, and very insistent on rationality as the highest value. In that regard, our values were congruent -- we agreed on the importance of mathematics and intellectual rigor.

But she had gone far beyond that, thinking more broadly than I had ever dared. She was a devoted Aristotelian -- the central idea being that there exists an objective reality that is separate from consciousness and capable of being known. Thus she called her philosophy objectivism. And she applied key tenets of Aristotelian ethics -- namely, that individuals have innate nobility and that the highest duty of every individual is to flourish by realizing that potential. Exploring ideas with her was a remarkable course in logic and epistemology. I was able to keep up with her most of the time.

Rand's Collective became my first social circle outside the university and the economics profession. I engaged in the all-night debates and wrote spirited commentary for her newsletter with the fervor of a young acolyte drawn to a whole new set of ideas. Like any new convert, I tended to frame the concepts in their starkest, simplest terms. Most everyone sees the simple outline of an idea before complexity and qualification set in. If we didn't, there would be nothing to qualify, nothing to learn. It was only as contradictions inherent in my new notions began to emerge that the fervor receded.

One contradiction I found particularly enlightening. According to objectivist precepts, taxation was immoral because it allowed for government appropriation of private property by force. Yet if taxation was wrong, how could you reliably finance the essential functions of government, including the protection of individuals' rights through police power? The Randian answer, that those who rationally saw the need for government would contribute voluntarily, was inadequate. People have free will; suppose they refused?

I still found the broader philosophy of unfettered market competition compelling, as I do to this day, but I reluctantly began to realize that if there were qualifications to my intellectual edifice, I couldn't argue that others should readily accept it. [...]

Ayn Rand and I remained close until she died in 1982, and I'm grateful for the influence she had on my life. I was intellectually limited until I met her. All of my work had been empirical and numbers-based, never values-oriented. I was a talented technician, but that was all. My logical positivism had discounted history and literature -- if you'd asked me whether Chaucer was worth reading, I'd have said, "Don't bother." Rand persuaded me to look at human beings, their values, how they work, what they do and why they do it, and how they think and why they think. This broadened my horizons far beyond the models of economics I'd learned. I began to study how societies form and how cultures behave, and to realize that economics and forecasting depend on such knowledge -- different cultures grow and create material wealth in profoundly different ways. All of this started for me with Ayn Rand. She introduced me to a vast realm from which I'd shut myself off.

From The Age of Turbulence, pp. 51-53. Omissions from the text are shown with bracketed ellipses. All other punctuation and spelling is from the original.

http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/turbulence.html

What are the laws of logic and where do they come from? How do you account for them?

>> ^kceaton1:

This video was o.k., not really that funny not that great. I'll upvote, but really the conversation underneath is more interesting.
It's interesting to me how much we use logic and it's precepts in our daily lives: "Should I drive (trust) my car to work?", "Should I walk over this suspension bridge?"., etc... -- and so on...
BUT, when it comes to religion we don't DARE use logic against it. I finally used it on mine and was out very quickly (and for shiny, it was a subject much as they are bringing up TO YOU, not what would exclusively be brought up against a Mormon as I know you LOVE to do that do SO VERY MUCH).
Logic is humanities greatest WEAPON. You can fight GODS with it, because they cannot merely pull the wool over your eye's to become the ONE and TRUE champion. Others will come together and they will see the errors in the ways a "God" is trying to manipulate, "reality". Sometimes this must even make you ask the question (if I was a believer) is Satan actually the REAL God and we are merely getting a book of events from the winner .
History is shaped by the winners not the losers, you might do well to remember that fallacy as well--it is another bullet hole possible in the Bible. Otherwise I agree, if you cannot use logic as your friend you will never exceed or go BEYOND your expectations., as many have said.

This video was o.k., not really that funny not that great. I'll upvote, but really the conversation underneath is more interesting.

It's interesting to me how much we use logic and it's precepts in our daily lives: "Should I drive (trust) my car to work?", "Should I walk over this suspension bridge?"., etc... -- and so on...

BUT, when it comes to religion we don't DARE use logic against it. I finally used it on mine and was out very quickly (and for shiny, it was a subject much as they are bringing up TO YOU, not what would *exclusively* be brought up against a Mormon as I know you LOVE to do that do SO VERY MUCH).

Logic is humanities greatest WEAPON. You can fight GODS with it, because they cannot merely pull the wool over your eye's to become the ONE and TRUE champion. Others will come together and they will see the errors in the ways a "God" is trying to manipulate, "reality". Sometimes this must even make you ask the question (if I was a believer) is Satan actually the REAL God and we are merely getting a book of events from the *winner*.

History is shaped by the winners not the losers, you might do well to remember that fallacy as well--it is another bullet hole possible in the Bible. Otherwise I agree, if you cannot use logic as your friend you will never exceed or go BEYOND your expectations., as many have said.

>> ^Crosswords:

>> ^kceaton1:
It goes beyond evolution though, if I'm getting this right. FOR HELL'S SAKE we can use the speed of light to see things FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR^100 older than 10,000 years!!! It's a fucking joke. If you believe this you are an idiot. Period! = .
It's not just light and carbon dating, we have LOTS of ways to show this place is WAY older...

You're forgetting the Law of God Physics which clearly states God can do anything including making the universe appear much older than it actually is for the purposes of fooling his human creations so he has a way of testing their loyalty when he's not asking them to kill their first born son and saying, JUST KIDDING, at the last minute.


The funny part about this stuff is that they typically say that God "moved the photons" (atleast the semi smarter ones will) and the STILL dumb ones will say that, well light was, you see going a different speed back then so it still all adds up...YOU SEE!!!

BUT THEN!...If you understand relativity correctly like me you understand that you can change the speed of light all the time you want. In fact make it go 1 ft/second! It doesn't MAKE A DAMNED difference in how we will STILL measure the time gone/go/will go by! People never get this at all and it really is the sort of thing were someone mumbles under their breath when they finally understand what I'm saying/going to say: "Is that not amazing!!!". You see mass and energy are the same thing and light is special, it goes the same speed EVERYWHERE, EVERY-TIME, ALL THE TIME--and this thing called "light" are these little tiny particles/waves called photons that as I said before, but not quite as directly, they literally ARE mass and energy, so the relationship between us and light is so fundamental it SHOULD blow your mind. But, so many people went through school and listen to their preachers and have no idea how vitally important that "little" discovery that Einstein made was!!! So, even we at 1 ft/s light speed STILL notice everything moving and everyone we know moving at that same "time" measurement of one second (funny isn't it; but, light is traveling at one second as well, how can this make any sense..!?!?! Well here it comes, it is called relativity and the fact that light is a constant and the other very important fact that our measurement of one second really measures...what?) as we are literally stuck in a cage (this "cage" is called The Universe) that cannot be tampered with. This is all due to that little fact that our perception of time IS relative and our view of one second can be EXTREMELY messed with, but to us it will always seem to be one second--even if 1 Billion years went by. The age of the Universe comes from the SHIFT of energy in the photons present that we can see coming from other places in any direction around us; so God would need to put THAT hologram there nothing else, BUT there is a giant problem in doing this (because due to our friends that want God to actively fuck us over for some reason--the hologram only extends technically 10,000 years out and "hides" the rest--if God put everything the way we see it and it isn't even an illusion--what can I say at that point if God was real I would join the Devil in less than a heart beat to overthrow his LYING, SADIST, and moreover EVIL ass!) If the hologram WAS there then: the hologram, it would need to be different in EVERY single direction you look; every time you move one Planck length (I might be wrong, maybe just the length of a photon) further out into space God would need to fix the energy distribution to make his illusion look correct... YOU HAVE no idea how absurd to the absurd degree this sounds, even GOD would spend his entire existence doing this because the job would require this long to do it: forever (until the UNIVERSE STOPS!). I'm not kidding it would be utterly ridiculous (from Earth his "image" would look right, on Mt. Everest, it would look wrong,; in space it would look wrong--in fact if you have sensitive enough equipment every square foot you took would somehow end up looking incorrect--we're talking about the cosmic background radiation, the little thing that lets us know how old our Universe is and that everything around us is moving away from us...

So that comes to the "putting the photons into place syndrome". For the most part I'm starting to think that these people like to abuse their brain in secret rooms with paint, huffing it until they collapse in a heap. in the morning they slowly scrub the white vinyl paint off their nose and mouth and go start with the blue. The problem with this is God had to of atleast put photons 13.5 Billion years out for this to even work--so in the end it falls so flat on it's face it makes no sense. If he was using a hologram, where is the border? Why do we detect gravitational anomalies when those have been proven to be real locally? It just goes on, and on, and on, and on.

I'd love to hear them explain why space may be full of Dark Matter or better yet why is "nothing" full of something called "The Quantum Foam"--you may have heard of "Vacuum Energy", same thing more or less--look it up it's fascinating and may even be the source OF "The Big Bang". Why can we pull photons (from "nothing") out of the Quantum Foam? According to lots of religious folks you can't create something from nothing, but WHAM, there it is! Sometimes, it just might be a bad idea to hold onto your old per-conceived precepts if they do not allow for change. BTW, the photon coming out of thin air was in a very well-known (now) experiment and is HIGHLY worth looking up; you can find details about it in my Videosift Blog (which is entirely about it).

You could disprove their crap all day. The truth is is that they did bad in their science classes, they just didn't get it and for some archaic left over juvenile resentment, they must have their righteous rite of "The Comeback Minister (or Preacher/Prophet/Father/etc...). So in revenge they are taking the easy way out and saying, "Hah, see I didn't need to learn that stuff from Mr. Scrampton in 12th grade! I'm a Minister now and I can just TELL you what is right, because I know it's right in my gut; especially after five cases of Budweiser!". Now they never tell you the truth. They lie, they tell you it "came" to them, like their a prophet now or something. ...Well if they can be prophets, why can't we? Oh wait, scientists do in fact fill this role and they do a good job at it. they constantly warn us of dangers and things the government should do. But, there are far too many damage control freaks with their own agenda running around and they seem to cling to religion as it satisfies very easily their questions, making it so they don't have to work to find the actual hard ones that exist and that we DO need.

It's not in the Bible that any of these idiots would tell us anything meaningful, nor the Koran, or any other holy book. So I find it strange that so many line up and then sit down and listen to these idiots blather on about the world and how to cure it and what it's ills are. They also as I said do a great deal of "re-education" in THEIR vision satisfying that old juvenile, washed up nothing who couldn't get over the fact that he wasn't good at science off the bat or maybe even when he tried too. This is the bane on America (and I would assume many other places, but America has a lot of this). They are teaching and re-teaching our people ridiculous notions and since they require very little work to understand, just community, people believe it--especially because it's being believed in numbers and that is the important part.

Now this was a longer post than what I wanted it to be and it also went past the scope of my original intentions. BUT, the reason why those statistics exist is due to the nature, the epidemic of how people are being re-taught forcibly (you think like us or you are no longer with us--it can have shocking community affects, especially when it becomes a inter-family problem...I know this EXTREMELY well due to my Mormon upbringing; when I became an atheist I was shunned and cut-off from the community, at first. they slowly let me back in when they realized I was an extremely good person, usually a better person than many of the people in the Church and so my neighbors finally no longer cared--cared what the churches stance was either--who or what I was, they took me for what I was--IT TOOK 20 years to happen!). So many people are started and taught young this is a HUGE problem, I know it's a major one with the Mormon church. You are baptized into the church at eight. You should hear the things they ask you to accept and agree to--they are things that only and adult with experience could properly answer (more like someone that is 25) yet an eight year old surrounded by their family and peers of course can give only ONE answer.

After that, you being to be taught all the incorrect things you could possibly think of. If you are even semi-devout like me (and this goes for many other religions as well) going to public school in Utah, the church has LITERALLY built seminary schools next to every High School and Junior High (and this is true outside of Utah too, as I'm SURE Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, and Nevada--maybe more too, I'm sure they have them locally to attend--I'm sure many of these states have these institutions built right next door or somewhere for kids to attend) you will attend seminary due to the wishes of your parents (my parental situation was beginning to change--and for the better).

Still I attended seminary through grades 7-12 and could have continued in College, but I was agnostic by then...if not basically atheist, just not strong enough to say it. Seminary had it's wonderful parts, but the mis-information was a joke. luckily I was smart, very smart. So I was able to separate the information apart from each other and it allowed me to ask STRONG questions about my one time faith. These questions and their mis-information EASILY killed that religion for eternity, for me--for A LOT of reasons. Many of which, many of you know...easily. It came to ME slow. SO when i talk about helping other people you need to realize what we are up against. facts that do come to us easily usually don't to them and it typically has to do with their past. but, it is HARD to get them to talk about their past openly. For one thing there is no possibility of them being wrong or in danger of it. Somehow we MUST change this.

/Like I said longer, but I hope it was worth it.
/edited for more clarity and a few additions

*promote

A decent song to be added to the Audiosift! I hope you agree.

Make sure you read the poem to get an odd idea of how this song may be going... I've heard several interpretations of the poem (which means "dance Russian or Russian dance") from a poem about cold-war standings and precepts or that the man in the poem has killed his family before he does his little dance. But, many poems can be left up to you the reader, to determine it's final meaning and outcome. This poet was known for his slightly more morbid and ghastly leaning pieces, so death may be somewhat likely--but, it was also popular to include the leanings and political problems that were constantly on display around these writers in these times as well, providing us with yet another source of material...

Disease rates

"During the past two decades, an explosive growth in both the prevalence and types of sexually transmitted diseases has occurred. Up to 55 percent of homosexual men with anorectal complaints have gonorrhea; 80 percent of the patients with syphilis are homosexuals. Chlamydia is found in 15 percent of asymptomatic homosexual men, and up to one third of homosexuals have active anorectal herpes simplex virus"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrezDb=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=2242700&ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_Resul
tsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Higher rates of AIDS - 63 percent of new cases

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5424a2.htm


Drug use

Among homosexual men, ages 18 to 25: 79.2 percent have used marijuana; 75 percent have used psychotherapeutics for nonmedical reasons; 65.2 percent have used stimulants such as dexedrine and benzedrine; 62.5 percent have used inhalants such as amyl or butyl nitrate; and 50.2 percent have used hallucinogens such as LSD. Rates among lesbians: marijuana, 82 percent; psychotherapeutics, 58.8 percent; stimulants, 52.9 percent; inhalants, 41.2 percent; and hallucinogens, 41.2 percent. Comparing current usage to national usage, homosexuals were found to use drugs with greater frequency: "Among adults aged 18-25, 16.5 percent of men and 9.1 percent of women have used marijuana in the past month, compared with 37.5 per-cent of gay men and 23.5 percent of lesbians."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1615476/

20 times higher rate of meth use (quoted from LA Times article)

http://www.narth.com/docs/methuse.html

Domestic violence

"Rates of battering victimization among urban MSM are substantially higher than among heterosexual men and possibly heterosexual women. Public health efforts directed toward addressing intimate partner battering among these men are needed."

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.92.12.1964

http://www.springerlink.com/content/r130ql0471892435/

Depression, suicide, mental health

LGB people are at higher risk of mental disorder, suicidal ideation, substance misuse, and deliberate self harm than heterosexual people

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18706118

Findings support recent evidence suggesting that gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people are at increased risk of mental health problems, with these associations being particularly evident for measures of suicidal behavior and multiple disorder.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10530626

Life expectancy of homosexuals

"In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years will not reach their 65th birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by all men in Canada in the year 1871"

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/3/657.abstract

Statistics on Amsterdam

According to a study in the Netherlands where homosexuality has been accepted and mainstreamed for years, homosexual behavior significantly increases the likelihood of psychiatric, mental and emotional disorders, negating the mindset that society’s lack of tolerance of homosexual behavior and lifestyle produces these psychoses Youth are four times as likely to suffer major depression, almost three times as likely to suffer generalized anxiety disorder, nearly four times as likely to experience conduct disorder, four times as likely to commit suicide, five times as likely to have nicotine dependence, six times as likely to suffer multiple disorders, and more than six times as likely to have attempted suicide.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11146762

That covers all of my claims. I think you'll find all of the evidence I have provided is from unbiased sources. This refutes the claim that homosexuality does not harm anyone. It clearly harms the individual, the community and society at large.

Here are some more statistics that I don't have direct links to. .

An Amsterdam study found that the average homosexual relationship lasts only 18 months and that "men in homosexual relationships, on average, have eight partners a year outside those relationships." By comparison, more than two-thirds of heterosexual marriages in America last longer than ten years. Maria Xiridou et al.,

"The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection Among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,"
AIDS 17, 7 (2003): 1029-1038.

Ricky Behaviors:

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco found that thirty-six percent of homosexuals engaging in unprotected oral, anal, or vaginal sex failed to disclose that they were HIV positive to casual sex partners.

"Some With HIV Aren't Disclosing Before Sex; UCSF Researcher's 1,397-person Study Presented During aids Conference," The San Francisco Examiner (July 15, 2000)"

A CDC report revealed that, in 1997, 45 percent of homosexuals reporting having had unprotected anal intercourse during the previous six months did not know the HIV serostatus of all their sex partners. Even more alarming, among those who reported having had unprotected anal intercourse and multiple partners, 68 percent did not know the HIV serostatus of their partners

Gay and Bi Men Less Likely to Disclose They Have HIV," GayHealth News (July 18, 2000).

Promiscuity

A.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg, in their classic study of male and female homosexuality, found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, with 28 percent having 1,000 or more sex partners.

A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 308, 9; see alsoBell, Weinberg and Hammersmith, Sexual Preference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981)

Paul Van de Ven et al., "A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men," Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): 354. Dr. Paul Van de Ven reiterated these results in a private conversation with Dr. Robert Gagnon on September 7, 2000

In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al., found that only 2.7 percent claimed to have had sex with one partner only. The most common response, given by 21.6 percent of the respondents, was of having a hundred-one to five hundred lifetime sex partners.

Survey Finds 40 percent of Gay Men Have Had More Than 40 Sex Partners," Lambda Report, January/February 1998, p. 20.

A survey conducted by the homosexual magazine Genre found that 24 percent of the respondents said they had had more than a hundred sexual partners in their lifetime. The magazine noted that several respondents suggested including a category of those who had more than a thousand sexual partners.[11]

M. Pollak, "Male Homosexuality," in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, edited by P. Aries and A. Bejin, pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991),

In his study of male homosexuality in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, M. Pollak found that "few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners."

David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984), pp. 252, 3.

>> ^curiousity:

SREDNI VASHTAR

Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who counted for nearly everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian, and in his eyes she represented those three-fifths of the world that are necessary and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in himself and his imagination. One of these days Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary things---such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out dulness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago.

Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him ``for his good'' was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome. Conradin hated her with a desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian, and from the realm of his imagination she was locked out---an unclean thing, which should find no entrance.

In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that were ready to open with a message not to do this or that, or a reminder that medicines were due, he found little attraction. The few fruit-trees that it contained were set jealously apart from his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind blooming in an arid waste; it would probably have been difficult to find a market-gardener who would have offered ten shillings for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten corner, however, almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found a haven, something that took on the varying aspects of a playroom and a cathedral. He had peopled it with a legion of familiar phantoms, evoked partly from fragments of history and partly from his own brain, but it also boasted two inmates of flesh and blood. In one corner lived a ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy lavished an affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the gloom stood a large hutch, divided into two compartments, one of which was fronted with close iron bars. This was the abode of a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in exchange for a long-secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe, sharp-fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession. Its very presence in the tool-shed was a secret and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin. And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a week at a church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers in their season and scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient side of things, as opposed to the Woman's religion, which, as far as Conradin could observe, went to great lengths in the contrary direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg was strewn in front of his hutch, an important feature of the offering being that the nutmeg had to be stolen. These festivals were of irregular occurrence, and were chiefly appointed to celebrate some passing event. On one occasion, when Mrs. De Ropp suffered from acute toothache for three days, Conradin kept up the festival during the entire three days, and almost succeeded in persuading himself that Sredni Vashtar was personally responsible for the toothache. If the malady had lasted for another day the supply of nutmeg would have given out.

The Houdan hen was never drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar. Conradin had long ago settled that she was an Anabaptist. He did not pretend to have the remotest knowledge as to what an Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that it was dashing and not very respectable. Mrs. De Ropp was the ground plan on which he based and detested all respectability.

After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to attract the notice of his guardian. ``It is not good for him to be pottering down there in all weathers,'' she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced that the Houdan hen had been sold and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted eyes she peered at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow, which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said nothing: there was nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a delicacy which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also because the making of it ``gave trouble,'' a deadly offence in the middle-class feminine eye.

``I thought you liked toast,'' she exclaimed, with an injured air, observing that he did not touch it.

``Sometimes,'' said Conradin.

In the shed that evening there was an innovation in the worship of the hutch-god. Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, tonight be asked a boon.

``Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.''

The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god he must be supposed to know. And choking back a sob as he looked at that other empty comer, Conradin went back to the world he so hated.

And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom, and every evening in the dusk of the tool-shed, Conradin's bitter litany went up: ``Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.''

Mrs. De Ropp noticed that the visits to the shed did not cease, and one day she made a further journey of inspection.

``What are you keeping in that locked hutch?'' she asked. ``I believe it's guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away.''

Conradin shut his lips tight, but the Woman ransacked his bedroom till she found the carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down to the shed to complete her discovery. It was a cold afternoon, and Conradin had been bidden to keep to the house. From the furthest window of the dining-room the door of the shed could just be seen beyond the corner of the shrubbery, and there Conradin stationed himself. He saw the Woman enter, and then be imagined her opening the door of the sacred hutch and peering down with her short-sighted eyes into the thick straw bed where his god lay hidden. Perhaps she would prod at the straw in her clumsy impatience. And Conradin fervently breathed his prayer for the last time. But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe. He knew that the Woman would come out presently with that pursed smile he loathed so well on her face, and that in an hour or two the gardener would carry away his wonderful god, a god no longer, but a simple brown ferret in a hutch. And he knew that the Woman would triumph always as she triumphed now, and that he would grow ever more sickly under her pestering and domineering and superior wisdom, till one day nothing would matter much more with him, and the doctor would be proved right. And in the sting and misery of his defeat, he began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn of his threatened idol:

Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.

And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and drew closer to the window-pane. The door of the shed still stood ajar as it had been left, and the minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but they slipped by nevertheless. He watched the starlings running and flying in little parties across the lawn; he counted them over and over again, with one eye always on that swinging door. A sour-faced maid came in to lay the table for tea, and still Conradin stood and waited and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart, and now a look of triumph began to blaze in his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of defeat. Under his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began once again the pæan of victory and devastation. And presently his eyes were rewarded: out through that doorway came a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees. The great polecat-ferret made its way down to a small brook at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment, then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight in the bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar.

``Tea is ready,'' said the sour-faced maid; ``where is the mistress?'' ``She went down to the shed some time ago,'' said Conradin. And while the maid went to summon her mistress to tea, Conradin fished a toasting-fork out of the sideboard drawer and proceeded to toast himself a piece of bread. And during the toasting of it and the buttering of it with much butter and the slow enjoyment of eating it, Conradin listened to the noises and silences which fell in quick spasms beyond the dining-room door. The loud foolish screaming of the maid, the answering chorus of wondering ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps and hurried embassies for outside help, and then, after a lull, the scared sobbings and the shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy burden into the house.

``Whoever will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life of me!'' exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the matter among themselves, Conradin made himself another piece of toast.

By "closest at hand", I didn't mean that you grabbed it right away. While you did spend years coming to Jesus, it's no coincidence that you did, IMO. You say that among religions, you were particularly prejudiced against Christianity for it's implausibility. This doesn't surprise since it was the one you were most familiar with, and so the one you had seen the most problems with, until you investigated the other ones, and found them even worse. As you have noted several times yourself, growing up in the West, you were also strongly prejudiced towards Christianity, since a large part of our cultural ethos and moral code stems directly from it, even for us atheists. So, if you were going to discover that one religion was the true one, it would almost certainly be a strain of Christianity as it's the one that fits your own culture's moral code the best. If you'd chosen Voodoo instead, then your careful search of religions would be something worth pointing to as evidence.

I was prejudiced against Christianity because I didn't believe Jesus was a real person. I had never actually seriously investigated it, and I was also remarkably ignorant of what Christianity was all about, to the point that it might strain credulity. So no, it wasn't due to familiarity, because there wasn't any. I was just naturally inclined to reject it because of that doubt about Jesus.

At the point at which I accepted it, I had already rejected religion altogether. I was no more inclined to accept Christianity than I was Voodoo or Scientology. I had my own view of God and I viewed any imposition on that view as being artificial and manmade. The *only* reason I accepted Christianity as being true, as being who God is, is because of special revelation. That is, that God had let me know certain things about His nature and plan before I investigated it, which the bible later uniquely confirmed. My experience as a Christian has also been confirming it to this day.

These definitions, especially the ones about Satan are really self-serving. You declare that you have the truth, and part of that truth is that anyone who disagrees with you is possessed by the devil, which of course your dissenters will deny. But you can counter that easily because your religion has also defined satanic possession as something you don't notice. Tight as a drum, and these definitions from nowhere but the religion's own book.

My view is not only based on the bible but also upon my experience. I first became aware of demon possession before I became a Christian. I had met several people who were possessed by spirits in the New Age/Occult movement. At the time, I didn't know it was harmful, so I would interact with them and they would tell me (lies) about the spiritual realm. I thought it was very fascinating but I found out later they were all liars and very evil. It was only when I became a Christian that I realized they were demons.

I don't think everyone who doesn't know Jesus is possessed. If not possessed, though, heavily influenced. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin, and does the will of the devil, whether they know it or not. The illusion is complex and intricate, traversing the centers of intellect, emotion, memory, and perception, and interweaving them; it is a complete world that you would never wake up from if it wasn't for Gods intervention. The devil is a better programmer than the machines in the Matrix.

Actually, it was a very different feeling from that. I didn't feel I was the target of any conspiracy. I had stumbled into one --my group of friends-- but I was ignorant of the conspiracy before I had my experience. After I had it, I realized that they were all part of something bigger than me that I could never understand, and that I was actually in their way, that my presence in their group was really cramping their style a lot, slowing things down, forcing them to get things done surreptitiously. I realized they weren't going to directly remove me for now, but I didn't know how long their patience would last. So I removed myself, and hoped they'd leave me alone. In hindsight, they were horrible friends to begin with, so it was no loss for me. Losing those friends was a very good move for me.

Whatever they were involved in, it sounds like it wasn't any good. I can get a sense for what you're saying, but without further detail it is hard to relate to it.

Again, you're claiming you are right, and everything untrue comes from Satan, and if I have any logical reason to doubt your story, you can give yourself permission to ignore my logic by saying it is from Satan and that's why it has the power to show the Truth is wrong. So, any Christian who believes a logical argument that conflicts with the dogma is, by definition, being fooled by Satan, and has a duty to doubt their own mind. Even better than the last one for mind control. It does away utterly with reliance on any faculty of the mind, except when their use results in dogmatic thoughts. Genius. Serious props to whoever came up with that. That's smart.

God is the one who said "Let us reason together". I accept that you have sincere reasons for believing what you do and rejecting my claims. If you gave me a logical argument which was superior to my understanding, I wouldn't throw it away as a Satanic lie. I would investigate it and attempt to reconcile it with my beliefs. If it showed my beliefs to be false, and there was no plausible refutation (or revelation), I would change my mind. The way that someone becomes deceived is not by logical arguments, it's by sin. They deceive themselves. You don't have to worry much about deception if you are staying in the will of God.

Like, if you say you believe God exists, I say fine. If you say you know God exists, I say prove it's not your imagination. If you say evolution is wrong, ordinarily I wouldn't care what you believe, except that if you're on school board and decide to replace it with Creationism or Intelligent Design in the science curriculum, then I have to object because that causes harm to children who are going to think that they are real science, and on equal footing with/compatible with/superior to evolution.

Have you ever seriously investigated the theory of evolution? Specifically, macro evolution. It isn't science. Observational science is based on data that you can test or observe. Macro evolution has never been observed, nor is there any evidence for it. Micro evolution on the other hand is scientific fact. There are definitely variations within kinds. There is no evidence, however, of one species changing into another species. If you haven't ever seriously investigated this, you are going to be shocked at how weak the evidence actually is.

evolution is unproved and unprovable. we believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.

sir arthur keith
forward to origin of the species 100th anniversay 1959

You may be right. I may be right. I think it's more likely that I'm right, but that's neither here nor there. How do you know you're not seeing things that aren't there? My experience proves the human mind is capable of doing so and sustaining it. The bible could have been written by several such people. Maybe in that time and place, people who ranted about strange unconnected things were considered to be prophets, and once plugged into the God story, they went to town. I'm not saying it's true, just a possible theory.

There isn't anything I can say which will conclusively prove it to you. The reason being, because my testimony is reliant upon my judgement to validate it, and you don't trust my judgement. You are automatically predisposed to doubt everything I have to say, especially regarding supernatural claims. So asking me to prove it when you aren't going to believe anything I say about it is kind of silly. All I can say is that I have been around delusional people, and the mentally ill, very closely involved in fact, and I know what that looks like. I am as sharp as I ever have been, clear headed, open minded, and internally consistant. You may disagree with my views, but do you sense I am mentally unstable, paranoid, or unable to reason?

Also, the prophets in the bible weren't ranting about strange, unconnected things. The bible has an internal consistancy which is unparalled, even miraculous, considering that it was written by 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years in three different languages.

If I was "in it" and deceiving myself then, I was in something and deceiving myself before. My beliefs about all supernatural things remain unchanged by my experience, that's to say, I still don't believe they exist.

I didn't either, so I understand your skepticism. Until you see for yourself that material reality is just a veil, you will never believe it. But when you do see it, it will change *everything*.

First, not claiming to have created anything doesn't mean he didn't do it, or that he did [edit] claim it and the records were lost. Two, hold the phone -- this rules out Christianity. Genesis states the world was created in six days a few thousand years ago, or something. You can argue that this is metaphorical (why?), but surely you can't say that world being flat, or the sun rotating around the Earth is a metaphor. These are things God would know and have no reason to misrepresent. Since it's God's word, everyone would just believe it. And why not? It makes just as much sense that the Earth is round and revolves around its axis.

There is no reason to include Gods who made no claim to create the Universe, which is most of them. If their claims are lost in antiquity, we can assume that such gods are powerless to keep such documents available. What we should expect to find, if God has revealed Himself, is an active presence in the world with many believers. This narrows it down to a few choices.

I don't argue that this is metaphorical, I agrue that it is literal. I believe in a young age for the Earth, and a literal six day creation.

[On re-reading the preceding argument and the context you made the claim, it is a stupid see-saw argument, so I'm taking it back.] Consider also there are tens of thousands of different strains of Christianity with conflicting ideas of the correct way to interpret the Bible and conduct ourselves. Can gays marry? Can women serve mass? Can priests marry? Can non-virgins marry? And so on. Only one of these sects can be right, and again, probably none of them are.

The disagreements are largely superficial. Nearly all the denominations agree on the fundementals, which is that salvation is through the Lord Jesus Christ alone. There are true Christians in every denomination. The true church is the body of Christ, of which every believer is a member. In that sense, there is one church. We can also look at the early church for the model of what Christianity is supposed to look like. The number of denominations doesn't speak to its truth.

2. The method itself doesn't take into account why the religion has spread. The answer isn't in how true it is, but in the genius of the edicts it contains. For example, it says that Christians are obliged to go convert other people, and doing so will save their eternal souls from damnation. Anyone who is a Christian is therefore compelled to contribute to this uniquely Christian process. I can't count the number of times I've been invited to attend church or talk about God with a missionary. That's why Christianity is all over the world, whereas no other religion has that spread. Also, there are all sorts of compelling reasons for people to adopt Christianity. One is that Christians bring free hospitals and schools. This gives non-truth-based incentives to join. The sum of this argument is that Christianity has the best marketing, so would be expected to have the largest numbers. The better question is why Islam still has half the % of converts that Christianity does, even though it has no marketing system at all, and really a very poor public image internationally.

Yet, this doesn't take into account how the church began, which was when there was absolutely no benefit to being a Christian. In fact, it could often be a death sentence. The early church was heavily persecuted, especially at the outset, and it stayed that way for hundreds of years. It was difficult to spread Christianity when you were constantly living in fear for your life. So, the church had quite an improbable beginning, and almost certainly should have been stamped out. Why do you suppose so many people were willing to go to their deaths for it? It couldn't be because they heard a good sermon. How about the disciples, who were direct witnesses to the truth of the resurrection? Would they die for something they knew to be a lie, when they could have recanted at any time?

3. This kinda follows from #1, but I want to make it explicit, as this, IMHO, is one of the strongest arguments I've ever come up with. I've never presented it nor seen it presented to a believer, so I'm keen for your reaction. It goes something like this: If God is perfect, then everything he does must be perfect. If the bible is his word, then it should be instantly apparent to anybody with language faculties that it's all absolutely true, what it means, and how to extrapolate further truths from it. But that's not what happens. Christians argue and fight over the correct interpretation of the bible, and others argue with Christians over whether it's God's word at all based on the many, many things that appear inconsistent to non-Christians. In this regard, it's obvious that it's not perfect, and therefore not the word of God. If it's not the word of God, then the whole religion based on it is bunk.

The issue there is the free will choices of the people involved. God created a perfect world, but man chose evil and ruined it. Gods word is perfect, but not everyone is willing to accept it, and those that do will often pick and choose the parts they like due to their own unrighteousness. We all have the same teacher, the Holy Spirit, but not everyone listens to Him, and that is the reason for the disagreements.

I didn't say people needed it. I said having a religion in a scary universe with other people with needs and desires that conflict with your own makes life a lot easier and more comfortable. Religion, in general, is probably the greatest social organizing force ever conceived of, and that's why religions are so attractive and conservatively followed in places with less beneficial social organization (i.e., places without democracy), and lower critical thinking skills (i.e. places with relatively poor education).

People come to Christianity for all sorts of reasons, but the number one reason is because of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as Christianity without Him. I became a Christianity for none of the reasons you have mentioned, in fact I seem to defy all of the stereotypes. I will also say that being a Christianity is lot harder than not. Following the precepts that Christ gave us is living contrary to the ways humans naturally behave, and to the desires of the flesh. As far as education goes, Christianity has a rich intellectual tradition, and people from all walks of life call themselves followers of Christ. You're also ignoring the places where Christianity makes life a lot more difficult for people:



In contrast, in times and places where people on a large scale are well off and have a tradition of critical thinking, the benefits of having a religion as the system of governance are less apparent, and the flaws in this system come out. It becomes more common for such nations to question the authority of the church, and so separate religion from governance. The West has done so, and is leading the world. Turkey is the only officially secular Muslim nation in the world and has clearly put itself in a field apart from the rest, all because it unburdened itself of religious governance when an imposed basic social organization structure was no longer required.

Then how might you explain the United States, where 70 percent of people here call themselves Christian, 90 percent believe in some kind of God, and almost 50 percent believe in a literal six day creation?

You're right, and you may not know how right you are. Modern scientific investigation, as away of life, comes almost entirely from the Christian tradition. It once was in the culture of Christianity to investigate and try to understand the universe in every detail. The thought was that understanding the universe better was to approach understanding of God's true nature -- a logical conclusion since it was accepted that God created the universe, and understanding the nature of something is to reveal the nature of its creator (and due to our natural curiosity, learning things makes us feel better). The sciences had several branches. Natural science was the branch dealing with the non-transcendent aspects of the universe. The transcendent ones were left to theologists and philosophers, who were also considered scientists, as they had to rigorously and logically prove things as well, but without objective evidence. This was fine, and everyone thought knowledge of the world was advancing as it should until natural science, by its own procedures, started discovering natural facts that seemed inconsistent with the Bible.

This isn't entirely true. For instance, Uniforitarian Geology was largely accepted, not on the basis of facts, but on deliberate lies that Charles Lyell told in his book, such as the erosion rate of Niagra Falls. Evolution was largely accepted not because of facts but because the public was swayed by the "missing links" piltdown man and nebraska man, both of which later turned out to be frauds.

That's when people who wanted truth had to decide what their truth consisted of: either God and canon, or observable objective facts. Natural science was cleaved off from the church and took the name "science" with it. Since then, religion and science have both done their part giving people the comfort of knowledge. People who find the most comfort in knowledge that is immutable and all-encompassing prefer religion. People who find the most comfort in knowledge that is verifiable and useful prefer science.

The dichotomy you offer here is amusing; Christianity is both verifiable and useful. I'll quote the bible:

Mark 8:36

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

>> ^messenger:

Ignoring your blatant and ignorant mischaracterization of the bible for a moment, perhaps you don't realize the role the 10 commandments has played in our legal system. Not withstanding that every single one of those commandments were once laws of this nation, it has also profoundly influenced the legal system as a whole. Some quotes:

Delware supreme court:

Long before Lord Hale declared that Christianity was a part of the laws of England, the Court of Kings Bench, 34 Eliz. in Ratcliff's case, 3 Coke Rep. 40, b. had gone so far as to declare that "in almost all cases, the common law was grounded on the law of God, which it was said was causa causans," and the court cited the 27th chapter of Numbers, to show that their judgment on a common law principle in regard to the law of inheritance, was founded on God's revelation of that law to Moses.
State v. Chandler, 2 Harr. 553 at 561 (1837)

John Adams

"It pleased God to deliver on Mount Sinai a compendium of His holy law and to write it with His own hand on durable tables of stone. This law, which is commonly called the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, . . . is immutable and universally obligatory. . . . [and] was incorporated in the judicial law."

John Quincy Adams

The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws. . . . Vain, indeed, would be the search among the writings of profane antiquity . . . to find so broad, so complete and so solid a basis for morality as this Decalogue lays down."

Chief Justice John Jay

The moral, or natural law, was given by the sovereign of the universe to all mankind."

Jusice James Wilson

"As promulgated by reason and the moral sense, it has been called natural; as promulgated by the Holy Scriptures, it has been called revealed law. As addressed to men, it has been denominated the law of nature; as addressed to political societies, it has been denominated the law of nations. But it should always be remembered that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same divine source; it is the law of God. . . . What we do, indeed, must be founded on what He has done; and the deficiencies of our laws must be supplied by the perfections of His. Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other. The divine law as discovered by reason and moral sense forms an essential part of both. The moral precepts delivered in the sacred oracles form part of the law of nature, are of the same origin and of the same obligation, operating universally and perpetually."

Alexander Hamilton

"The law of nature, “which, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God Himself, is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this.”"

Justice Joseph Story

"I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. . . . There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations." (emphasis added)
>> ^shuac:
Actually, the first ten commandments (out of a total of 623) were written by the jews and later co-opted by christians.
If they were authored by god (the way many people claim), you'd think they'd be the greatest top-ten list ever created anywhere at any time, greater than any writer living or dead. You'd think that, wouldn't you?
Here they are. Get ready.
1. I am the lord god, you shall have no other god before me.
2. Thou shalt not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above (so much for religious art & sculpture)
3. Thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain
4. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy (ignored by more christians than probably any other commandment)
5. Honor thy father and mother (apparently regardless of whether they're worthy of honor)
6. Thou shalt not murder (except when god does it or commands it)
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery (also ignored by many christians)
8. Thou shalt not steal (like, say, evangelical preachers?)
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, his field, his manservant or his maidservant, his wife, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbor's.
A pretty unimpressive list, I must say. Nothing about slavery or rape or genocide here...but then, what would the rest of the bible actually contain if not for slavery, rape, and genocide? Number ten is my personal favorite because it's probably the first prohibition against a particular brand of thought. Thoughtcrime, as George Orwell would've put it.