heyrabbit

They said they were going to reveal secrets, but they still haven't, unless jack's tattoo counts as one. what ever happened to michael and his son? weren't they freed at the end of last season? Because if they were, somebody should have shown up to rescue everyone by now, unless that careening smokey bitch got them

alright I'll get on that, I like sagan

"It is the same whether or not you forwarn them [the unbelievers], they will have no faith" (2:6). A fire "whose fuel is men and stones" awaits them (2:24). They will be "rewarded with disgrace in this world and with grievous punishment on the Day of Resurrection" (2:85). "God's curse be upon the infidels!" (2:89). "they have incurred God's most inexorable wrath. An ignominious punishment awaits [them]" (2:90). "God is the enemy of the unbelievers" (2:98). "The unbelievers among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews], and the pagans, resent that any blessing should have been sent down to you from your Lord" (2:105). "[We] shall let them live awhile, and then shall drag them into the scourge of the Fire. Evil shall be their fate" (2:126). "Do not say that those slain in the cause of God are dead. They are alive, but you are not aware of them" (2:154). "But the infidels who die unbelievers shall incur the curse of God, the angels, and all men. Under it they shall remain for ever; their punishment shall not be lightened, nor shall they be reprieved" (2:162). "The unbelievers are like beasts which, call out to them as one may, can hear nothing but a shout of a cry. Deaf, dumb, and blind, they understand nothing" (2:172)."How steadfastly they seek the Fire! That is because God has revealed the Book with truth; those that disagree about it are in extreme schism" (2:176). "Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage." . . . f they attack you put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded: but if they desist, God is forgiving and merciful. Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God's religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil doers" (2:190-93). "Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing although it is bad for you. God knows, but you know not" (2:216) "They will not cease to fight against you until they force you to renounce your faith--if they are able. But whoever of you recants and dies and unbeliever, his works shall come to nothing in this world and in the world to come. Such men shall be the tenants of Hell, wherein they shall abide forever. Those that have embraced the faith, and those that have fled their land and fought for the cause of God, may hope for God's mercy" (2:217-18). "Those that deny God's revelations shall be sternly punished; God is might and capable of revenge" (3:5). "Say to the unbelievers: 'You shall be overthrown and driven into Hell--an evil resting place!'" (3:12). "Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people. They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is evident from what they utter with their mouths, but greater is the hatred which their breasts conceal" (3:118). "If you have suffered a defeat, so did the enemy. We alternate these vicissitudes among mankind so that God may know the true believers and choose martyrs from among you (God does not love the evil-doers); and that God may test the faithful and annihilate the infidels" (3:140). "Believers, if you yield to the infidels they will drag you back to unbelief and you will return headlong to perdition.... We will put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers....The Fire shall be their home" (3:149-51). "Those that suffered persecution for My sake and fought and were slain: I shall forgive them their sins and admit them to gardens watered by running streams, as a reward from God; God holds the richest recompense. Do not be deceived by the fortunes of the unbelievers in the land. Their prosperity is brief. Hell shall be their home, a dismal resting place" (3:195-96). "Such are those that are damned by their own sins. They shall drink scalding water and be sternly punished for their unbelief" (6:70). It goes on like that... This is not "extreme" Islam. These quotes are fundamentalistic, indeed, because they are fundamental to islam. Quotes of this nature can be found on almost every page of the Quran. They make up about 7 or 8 percent of the entire book. Oh I almost forgot. There's one ambiguous quote that can be considered a denouncement of suicide, if that's how you interpret it. "Do not destroy yourselves" (4:29) This quote, of course, is in direct contradiction with the dozens of calls to war. If didn't already know that religions tend to be contradictory, now you do. Mulsims are instructed not to attack until they themselves are attacked, although Islam is so intolerant of everything that almost anything can be rationalized an "attack" on their religion. And this is obviously the case. With the war in Iraq therein lies an endless excuse to purposefully kill innocent 'infidels'. Considering that entire cultures, millions, literally live by this writing, it's easy to see how this doctrine could easily dehumanize nonbelievers in the minds of anyone who subscribes to its validity(exactly like the dehumanization of the Jews by Christians before and during WW2). Really, it seems as though a moderate Islamsist would have to make a severe and willful attempt to ignore much of their doctrine in order to rationalize association with any non-muslim, and therefore it should not be a surprise that this type of moderation does not exist. To me it seems almost inconceivable that anyone who reads the Quran religiously wouldn't be influenced in some manner to think less of every non-muslim. Keep in mind that the quotes above are a mere fraction of the intolerance and hate in the Quran. They are just a sample of a consistent and tediously endless antipathy toward nonbelievers. It's repeated over and over ad nauseam. The Hadith constitutes various other documented traditions which are important to Islamic culture. Here's an example of one. (taken from End of Faith, as were the quotes) Jihad is your duty under any ruler, be he godly or wicked. A single endeavor (of fighting) in Allah's Cause in the forenoon or in the afternoon is better than the world and whatever is in it. A day and night fighting on the frontier is better than a month of fasting and prayer. Nobody who dies and finds good from Allah (in the Hereafter) would wish to come back to this world even if he were given the whole world and whatever is in it, except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and get killed again (in Allah's Cause). He who dies without having taken part in a campaign dies in a kind of unbelief. Paradise is in the shadow of swords.

yeah I really don't think it matters. pretty much all of the news stations have a liberal bias which is probably why I don't get news from tv.

Belief in god is delusional regardless of what I think or what anybody else thinks. it's delusional by the very definition of the word. However, this is not to say, by any means, that most people are unintelligent or delusional as a whole. It's not much to say that Einstein,Newton, or anybody else was religious because if you look throughout history, everybody was religious. I don't think I need to point out why that's a poor argument. Most of those who knew the world was flat were religious. by the same token, those who knew the world was round were religious. But Einstein in particular was only religious in "Einsteinian sense".(tautology i know, but in reference to Dawkins). What it means is that scientists often use the word 'god' in a very loose way to say that the world is a "wondrous, complicated, mysterious place". Einstein really only ever used the word in metaphorical sense. You really only have to look at our government, or out neighbour's, to understand why people are compelled to make irrational decisions. I've seen parts of Contact although I forget it. I remember that it's very metaphorical and romantic about the quest for knowledge. At least that's what I remember. Something to do with aliens? Maybe I'll download it

are you experienced? - hendrix revolutionary

Exactly, the point is that nobody is schooled enough in this area, and it is that way because - so long as we believe in god - there is really is no reason to search for the real answers behind the science of morals, ethics, and faith. What is good, what is bad, what is belief, what is happiness. NONE of these questions matter so long as religion previals because religion claims to have the answers. There is no "science of happiness" because we have god! Really, everyone's ultimate purpose in life is to be happy, but nobody pushes to learn about it. All we have is the "positivity" shpeal, which is a start but it's obviously not good enough. There is real reason to believe that faith is actually a genetic disease which is passed down through the generations -- something that makes a person more susceptible to being gullible or credulous. i.e. when you're young you have to believe what your parents say is true regardless of evidence, or else you'll walk off a cliff or get eaten by a bear. This is really not a ridiculous concept so long as you subscribe to evolution because everything evolved ought to have survival value, and faith is no exception.

there's no way it'll be as good as the simpsons in its prime. they stopped being satirical like , 7 years ago? Conan stopped writing for them years ago. I'll see the movie anyway. I'm glad they aren't doing that live action thing

hahah. good one

An American electorate of 50% Atheists would not vote a president bush into power. That's why "moderates" are to blame. Yes, but the fact that they are non-violent is precisely the point. There is a direct correlation to be made between action and belief. I really don't think it's a trivial coincidence that Tibetans just happen to be largely non-violent and self-sacraficial - in response to oppressive situations- when the the prodiminant faith in their culture is just that. Muslims are militant and indiscriminately violent in similar circumstances. Priests setting themselves on fire just corroborates the connection between faith and action. We have no way of knowing a persons intentions - unless they tell us, which they actually frequently do and we ignore it - but we can see exactly how they respond to certain situations. And their actions correspond eerily to their doctrines. Oppression obviously plays a role, but its significance in the matter is almost irrelevant to me. I don't believe for a second that, given similar circumstances to Iraq, Americans intentionally and frequently blow themselves up in the name of Jesus. It's just not a part of the culture. Tibet is all but proof that oppression is not the deciding factor.

heyrabbit: Great reply, and I think we are generally in agreeance on these types of topics anyways but of course there are the minor disagreements. I agree with this statement to a point, yes people take the word of Islam literally, Muslims believe its the direct word of god, which if true, would mean god is a fucking asshole. But, I still have a hard time with the issue of what to do with this other then persuade people. I think that it takes a certain individual to blow himself or herself up, and I don

Well, the process for forming beliefs is not yet understood at the level of the brain. We really don't know all the ins and outs of how a person develops a belief and what affects that the process. It's possible to be so well educated that you can operate a 747, yet still believe that you'll get the 72 virgins in heaven. It's possible to be so intelligent that you can become a neurosurgeon, operate on the brains of others, and yet still believe that god will descend from the heavens in less than 50 years. Clearly, there occurs some partitioning of the mind which we do not yet understand. What I think is that our mind could be like a binary system. We could have a series of beliefs which collectively dictates our actions. Sometimes we might believe in the possibility of something. And there's a massive difference between kind of believing something and believing in the possibility of something. That's just something I've thought about but haven't read into very much. Beliefs are positive, not negative, in other words, you either have them or you don't. You can hope that you've won the lottery but it's not until you've actually won that the flood-gates of emotion are opened and your mental state is drastically altered, affecting your future actions.(paraphrased sam harris). So I don't think beliefs should be measured in "kind of's" and "sort of's" - we likely have thousands and millions of individual beliefs that shape our opinion as a whole. The terms "Extreme belief" and "moderate belief" are entirely tautological in nature. The belief that your soul will ascend directly to paradise after you've blown up a discotheque full of innocents, for instance, is not an extreme belief. It's an entirely rational belief given that you believe in the validity of the Quran. The belief that homosexuals are sinners is not an extreme belief if you're a Christian. It might be extremely different from other beliefs - and that may be the case in some instances - but it's not in the case of Islam. How are these beliefs any more "extreme" than believing jesus was born of a virgin? We've placed connotations on these words and we've assigned them to the beliefs that we decide are bad. There is really nothing extreme about those beliefs apart from the labels we've placed on them. We might say that one belief is more dangerous than the other, but I'm arguing that they're all religious belief is dangerous because the "moderate" beliefs, however you define them, allow the "extreme" beliefs to exist. There's an irony in "moderate" religion. The more you try to pacify the forces of reason, and the more "middle ground" you take, your world-view becomes more and more irrational. Fundamentalists at least offer reasons for their beliefs. If you ask a suicide bomber - while he's alive of course- what his reasons are for his actions, he will tell you exactly what the reasons are. They are not good reasons, but they are reasons. Moderates will just babble casuistry. The more reasonable they try to be the less reasonable their faith becomes. When will people realize that fundamentalism isn't the problem, it's the fundamentals of certain religions that are the problem. The world would be a better place if everyone in the middle east were fundamental Jainists. Those Islamists are most likely from North America. And there is a huge difference between the two cultures. You've got it the other way around. Anyone who says that suicides and murder is not apart of Islam, they've either never read the Quran or they're lying. The Quran explicitly and repeatedly calls for murder and suicide. There are dozens of quotes encouraging these actions and only one ambiguous quote which could be construed as a denouncement of these actions. The suicide bombers have got the doctrine on their side. You don't need to try to figure why they're doing it. THEY TELL US! They're doing it for god's sake. But everyone keeps ignoring it. "Why, why are they doing this, surely not for god". Yes, they're not stupid. they're economically oppressed. They're Islamists. tell us over and over and we ignore them.

your'e going places christine - up

supercanuk: I was absolutely speaking in the abstract when I said we should "put Islam on trial". So I agree with you there. I'm definitely not suggesting that we should indiscriminately attack Islamic states - that would be the height of hypocrisy -although sadly that is actually one option that may one day become our best option. And it's completely possible that it could come to that. I'm very much a libertarian so I agree fully that people should be allowed to believe whatever they want. However, don't be too quick to respect people on account of their beliefs.We should absolutely practice respecting humanity based on our morals, but we should NOT include feeling admonished to respect religious belief. You admit that religious belief is fantastically illogical and barbaric, and that it's a threat to our well being, yet it seems as though you have reservations about critiquing it out of an obligation to respect. We absolutely have to persuade people, as you said, but we can't expect to change everyone's mind so long as we treat their beliefs as though they are sacred, valid, and incontenstable. we should not be made to believe that ignoring a belief is equivalent to being respectful. In society it's considered taboo to even notice the differences between faiths, let alone the absurdities of them. And let me tell you, Islamists do not respect you. You are the scum of the earth - a dirty infidel who'll be consigned to the fires hell by Allah himself. When terrorists go on T.V. and decapitate a reporter saying things like, "We love death more than you love life" we pass it off as a 'minority' of Islamists who, of course, do not represent the rest of Islam which is otherwise a peaceful religion, right? No. It does represent Islam. it represents its doctrine and the people who follow it. It's specifically a murderous religion of conquest and those actions are not only supported by the Quran, they are demanded by it. When terrorists say they love death more than you love life, they actually mean it. We have a tendency to think, "oh they're a minority, nobody believes that". Yes they do. They believe they're going to a kindom with rivers of the purest milk and richest honey,and that 72 virgins await them in paradise.They believe this and it is a completely rational thing to believe given that they believe what every other Islamist believes. They might be the minority of people who do such things, but the majority believe that suicide bombings are justifiable. For every terrorist who blows himself up there is a mother who is proud that her son is going to paradise, and a neighbours who give praise to the family. Very few repudiate these actions becuase they believe in it themselves. The terrorists really aren't a "select few". The scary thing is it is their beliefs which cause them to commit the acts, the same beliefs that every other Islamist has. When I said we should put Islam on trial I meant that we should critisize the belief and marginalize its adherents just as you would to anyone who says they talk to aliens.The same goes for any incredible belief. And right now, the prevailing attitude is that we must repsect (ignore) all religious belief. It's completely immune to critisizm in all areas of our discourse. So long as that's the case, nobody should be surprised at the consequences. With the proliferation of technology, in the next 50 years - maybe substantially less than that- just about any militant/radical group who so desires will have access to weapons of mass destruction. The middle east is almost literally 150 years behind in moral development. 14th century civilizations and 21st century weapons do not mix, for blatantly obvious reasons. Hobofactory: The moderates are to blame to the extent that their intellectual dishonesty creates a culture whereby these intrinsically dangerous beliefs are accepted. Extremist beliefs are really not extreme, their actions are extreme. It's not extreme to believe that blowing up a subway car will grant you access to paradise given that you have the requisite Islamist beliefs. Blowing up the car is extreme, not the belief. Democracy as an ideology is not in the same realm as religion. It is a political ideology, not a spiritual one, and it does not purport to know anything specific about reality or the origin of life. Democracy is not a belief. It's important to remember that beliefs are a representation of the state of the world. Hating cream cheese is not a belief either. It's fair to say that extremists could exist despite a lack of religious moderates, but that says nothing about the influence religious moderation has on society. That is not to say that there wouldn't be considerably less extremists given that there were less moderates. And no, I cannot prove that, but I competely suspect that that's the case. I don't understand what you mean about adding or subtracting a zero.What I meant about positive and negative is that belief in god is a positive whereas disbelief in something is a negative. i.e. it doesn't make sense to believe in something positive when there's no positive reason to do so. i.e. " I believe in god because the world is a mysterious place(I don't understand it)". religious extremism is not the antithesis of atheism, theism is. atheism and theism are opposites. To your WW1 analogy, I don't know what you're getting at. It would make sense to me if you said that Britain waged war becuaes it didn't know that Germany was attacking France. See, doing something positive for a negative reason.

oh I like Christian bale, he might even be my favorite actor, but I just didn't like him as batman. American psycho is one of my favorite movies. He plays a good bruce wayne, but his actual Batman performance wasn't as good as I'd hoped. his batman voice sounded too contrived. to me it came off as too obvious that he was trying to be batman instead of just being batman. I guess I think he 'over-acted'. Batman really doesn't have a lot of personality. there's really not a lot required of you to put on a good performance because batman is a mystery in costume, like a superhero in that respect . His suit covers most of his body and it's the the suit that makes him look badass ( just like robocop). After that it's just choreography. But I didn't like the new suit either, or the new bat mobile. That probably has more to do with my disliking the movie than Christian Bale the new bat mobile just didn't seem to work, in my opinion. the galaxie and the caprice are signature batman, it's like taking the web away from spiderman. Batman is sleek and cool, not bumbling and militaristic.

I'm saying that we should challenge religious beliefs in the same way that we challenge all other similar beliefs in our discourse. e.g. if I were to say that I had transformed my cereal into the body of elvis, you would laugh at me. Why? Because these beliefs are synonymous with craziness. But if one talks about transubstantiation - the transformation of christ into crackers and wine - it's considered completely normal and acceptable in society.(I should note that I stole this analogy from a sam harris lecture). So we have to acknowledge the beliefs that are considered normal when lots of people believe them, but that are insane when believed in isolation. The best thing you can do is not contribute to the taboo surrounding religion in discussion. We shouldn't be surprised that, when we willingly ignore religious belief, it comes back to bite us in the ass.

The real tragedy in all of this is that not enough people are willing to place Islam on trial for these murders. We are again witnessing another instance in which the moderate world is passing the blame to the perpetrators instead of the religion that directly inspires and literally demands they they commit these acts. insofar as everyone continues to ignore the root of the problem, these attacks will continue. These people weren't psychopaths, or uneducated, they were ISLAMISTS. And their actions were predicated on their religous belief that they were serving god and that they would get 72 virgins in heaven. They believed that. It's hard for us to accept this because most north americans are closet something-or-others - they couldn't possibly have believed they were being martyrs - but this is exactly the case. my condolences to you and yours juanpe.

will Christian Bale play batman again? He's an excellent actor but I really didn't like him as batman in the last movie, nor did I like the movie itself. Heath ledger is as good a choice as any. Although he's an A-list celebrity, he's one of the better A-list actors, and his appearance is fairly versatile as is the character(joker) itself. The original joker was tall and lanky, right? No matter who they might have picked there would have been nay sayers, if only because Nicholson did such a great job. I thought they'd already played out the "making of Two Face" in Batman (forever?). I guess I just don't remember.

hayden - driveway

you can anagram his name to spell, nippyhH, or hhippy..n, or hipynhp, or pipnhhy

that's a slap in hte face to all ugly people. why would she do that? I'm guessing it has something to do with her wanting people too look beyond her looks, but her looks is all she has

is playing doctor?! that's nothing less than badass

coffeeee

hahah, " I've been controlling animals since I was 6". I love the sharpened broom-stake, that cracked me up

smart girl