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@drafterman
Right. But we can minimize it. Right now it is maximized. If the argument is: We can't eliminate it completely, so we should turn the dial up to 11. Then I disagree. It's like saying, we can't cure cancer right now, so let's actively give it to people.
How do you suggest we minimize it? Other than a third party CoC rewrite.
You don't really need to read any further. The rest of my post is just addressing your points rather than advancing the discussion.
Statutes? It's just rules on a web site on the internet. I find these depictions of the moderation here as some sort of government as laughable. The moderation on this sight isn't a government and has none of the qualities of a desirable government.
I took the word statutes from your remark "power should be limited by statute not by the personalities of whoever is wielding it". I interpreted this as analogous to forum rules.
The moderation isn't interested in a compromise and has no incentive to reach a compromise. They have all the power, are the final say in how the site is run (even trumping the site owner, apparently). There is literally no reason why they would willingly give any of that up.
I'm unaware of what they're interested in, but I'm well aware they have the final say. This isn't a democracy, though the mods do seem to have democratic values. But the first step in convincing them to make changes would probably be to give constructive suggestions. It may not work, but I think just complaining about their policies is even less likely to work.
Huh? Your comments are as public as your votes. Yet if your vote violates the CoC, there is a specifically tailored message explaining that it was reported, evaluated, and what moderation action was taken, with all the ways you fucked up. Yet when that applies to a forum comment it is magically a violation of privacy?Like, you can't even ask a mod if a comment violates the CoC and they won't even answer hypothetical questions on comments. Yet you'll get a 5 page treatise on how and why votes are good or bad.
I probably shouldn't be speaking for the mods here. Only they can answer why the rules treat these things differently. But I think formal debates are always over issues, not the people arguing them. Whereas on the forum, you can get in personal flamewars that are only about the people arguing them. These flamewars can involve embarrassing doxxing, nasty behavior that reformed members who are trying to turn over a new leaf would rather not be remembered, and all manner of sensitive content that would not be exposed in a formal debate. But fair point that both votes and posts are public and we all know that when we make them. To an extent, bish's privacy policy is protecting people from their own decisions.
How is this unavoidable? Every single thing in that paragraph is something that can be avoided. Don't have moderators who were involved in making the rules. Simple as that.
We'd need to find a convenient new person to draft the rules, someone who is an authority on moderation yet is not interested in moderating, and then bish and the others would need to agree to erase the current rules and replace them with the new ones. Which they won't do if they don't see anything wrong with the rules as they are. I can see them making the argument that content is more important than source.
And I doubt Mike would draft it. Writing and enforcing the rules is the job he gave to bish and the others. Taking that task off his hands was the whole point.
And yet if that was a vote, we'd have a very public demonstration as to whether or not it violated the CoC and whether that comment was deleted. See the difference and double standard?Also, I don't have as high opinion of bsh as you do.
I hadn't noticed. You should really make that clearer, man. All the glowing praise and sycophantic adulation really gives people mixed signals.
I'm not trying to be an apologist or anything. I was shooting for fair. I do appreciate that I'd probably be singing a different tune here if I had personally been sanctioned by the mods.
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@bsh1
If we're notified of the charge one hour before it takes effect, what happens if we open a protest thread and the discussion runs over an hour?
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@janesix
I am asking what it was created for
I don't think it was created at all. But I think it's a miraculous and mind-boggling little gem that is like no other rock in space we have yet discovered, and it regularly fills me with amazement.
But if you think Earth was created and that's your jumping off point, you might ask yourself a few questions.
- Does Earth's apparent uniqueness as a life bearing planet imply a creator intended for us to be here?
- Mass extinction is inevitable for every life form on Earth. Why were we created just to be destroyed?
- Are the Earth's purpose and humanity's purpose two different things, or is the purpose of our planet bound to us in some way?
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@drafterman
Nice. Thanks for taking the time to write that out for me.
I can see quite a bit of truth there. Interpretive power does diminish the power of the rules themselves, in practice. But I think RationalMadman hit the nail on the head: you can't remove subjectivity or the human element from a system of power. Statutes cannot rule by themselves; they always need people to enforce them. We're never going to get robots, and I'm not entirely sure I would want them. The rules may be clear, but whether someone has violated them often isn't, and robots can't make interpretive judgments (yet).
In the meantime I'll freely admit that I'm simply placing my trust in the personalities of our moderators, but I'm not entirely hopeless that a compromise can't be reached which addresses your concerns, as I think you make valid points. I'm not sure what form such a compromise would take. I'd be interested in hearing suggestions.
Take note that forum and voting moderation is treated in completely opposite fashions. Forum commenters can get away with just about anything. You can curse, abuse, and explicitly violate the CoC and nothing (apparent) happens. It is all opaque and no one (other than the mods and possible violators) know if anything is even happening.Compare that with voting which is very heavily scrutinized with a fine-toothed come, and moderator reactions are very public and explicit.
I've heard moderation say many times now that this is to protect the privacy rights of members. Your "criminal record" is personal and sensitive information. Your votes on debates aren't, really. So I can understand why these two realms are treated differently.
EDIT: Additionally, I think there is something to be said that the people who make up the moderation team should be separate and distinct from the people who make up the Code of Conduct. By having them be the same people, you end up with a group that has an emotionally vested interest in the rules as intended rather than rules as written and a propensity to ignore mistakes in moderation which inevitable leads to moderator abuse.
Another point I find true but unavoidable. But I think bish would make every effort to ensure the rules as written reflect the rules as intended. The only time I saw someone who seemed to violate the rules as written without being penalized was when Vaarka said "you're all idiots" shortly after the CoC went up. But since moderation is private, I have no idea how that was really handled.
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Again, RationalMadman, please stop @ing me. If you're gonna block someone, just stop engaging that person. Block and ignore. I'll totally respect that boundary.
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@bsh1
Consider me set straight. So to be clear, this means a member can publicly protest a charge so long as they don't quote directly from a moderator's PM?
I didn't see anything in the religion forum that explicitly broke the rules. If I do, I won't just complain about it. But I'm not gonna report someone for a contemptuous attitude if they aren't making any direct personal attacks. My understanding is that the CoC does not forbid contempt. Just certain ways of expressing it. Since I'm talking about the kind of borderline behavior that isn't easy to prosecute, I feel like I'd be wasting your time bringing it to your attention.
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@Mopac
I'm with you there. I am anonymous.But some people use facebook.There was a time back in the day when it was very commonly believed that anyone who puts personal information on the internet was an idiot.Now it is the norm.Times have changed, boy I tell ya.
Ikr. My grandma used to scare me with stories of young girls who gave their address out online and got murdered. Now an individual's online personal information is just a drop in the ocean.
I still don't do Facebook. Which I've been very glad of, given recent news.
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@janesix
What people "want" to believe has no effect on reality.
What people want to believe has every effect on human history, human perception, and human life. But yes, it has no effect on objective reality beyond the human experience.
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@drafterman
What's a description of the moderation system you'd rather see?Well, you could, but it's clear from experience you won't. The process is more opqaue and obtuse than it needs to be, beyond any issues of user privacy.
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@Stephen
Well Judaism did begin as a henotheistic religion.
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@Stephen
But saying "you shall not make an image of heaven above or earth beneath or the waters below" still strikes me as a pretty weird and roundabout way of saying "you shall not make idols".From your post 48 Castin > it is exactly as you have put in your post above. It doesn't say an image OF heaven it says IN heaven"You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.You shall not bow down to them or worship them."But let's not get blindsided by semantics, The fact is that on the strict command of this god Moses was told NOT to make graven images of anything above in the skies /heaven or below on earth. There is absolutely no getting away from this fact. God then goes against his own dictate and commands Moses to make a staff/rod/ pole and to entwine around it a healing Serpent. And they have this staff in their possession for over a thousand years before Hezekiah decides this gods created and designed Serpent Healing Staff is an abomination and orders its destruction.Meanwhile, standing inside and outside of the Jerusalem Temple of Solomon the most sacred place on earth (depending on which god you supported), King Hezekiah of Judah has Graven images of heavenly beings and two giant engraven statues with wingspans of over 30ft and no one seems to find these images offensive in anyway..at all, no one, not even god or King Hezekiah?This is not to mention all of the heavenly imagery that adorn the inside of god's own house/temple.
You're right; my mistake. Is there a significant difference between "of heaven" and "in heaven"?
The staff gets destroyed after people start to worship it and Hezekiah gets justifiably freaked out that God will get mad. But I really can't blame them; if it had been saving my tribe's ass from necrotizing venom and degenerative nerve damage for a thousand years I'd probably be throwing my panties at it too.
For instance on Wikipedia you'll find:
"... However, sometimes objects that God instructed to be made were turned into idols by the Israelites. The Book of Numbers contains a narrative in which God instructed Moses to make a bronze snake as part of addressing a plague of venomous snakes that had broken out among the Israelites as a punishment for sin. The bronze snake is mentioned again in 2 Kings 18; however, rather than remaining a memorial of God's providence, it became an idol that the people named and worshiped. Thus the bronze snake was destroyed in King Hezekiah's reforms."
Earlier I read you asking why it suddenly became unacceptable to worship the staff after the Israelites had been doing it for a thousand years. And my answer is I have absolutely no idea. Fair question.
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@Mopac
When I say that these people don't respect scripture, I'm saying that they don't honestly care what the intent and purpose of it is. They don't really care about what it is actually saying, they only pretend to if convenient.
Some truth to that, I'm afraid. But "what it is actually saying" is a matter of such undying debate and interpretation, and biased theists are just as likely to read the best meaning into scripture as biased atheists are the worst. Everyone reads the Bible with a motive.
The interpretation that we are not to make any images, statues, or anything like that is actually very common in a lot of protestant circles, and is contradicted by scripture itself that has, even in the time of Moses, this brass serpent, the 10 commandments which are a graven image on stone, and a container for the 10 commandments that has statues on it. CLEARLY the iconoclast interpretation is off the mark.It is easy for an artist to take their work as an idol before God, serving their creation. Even today, you see people who make the consumption and geeking out over art the thing that makes life for them. The God of scripture is not a created thing. If you take God as a created thing, you are not really looking at God. The point isn't to destroy all art, it is not to be worshipped.The Truth is God. The whole point of scripture is to plant this in the heart. Scripture itself is supposed to be used to make God known, it is not supposed to be taken as an idol before God.So sorry if I sound repetitive, but iconoclasm is a heresy. Iconoclasm is destructive towards everything and condemns the iconoclast in the process.
My conclusion is this passage is the victim of its own poor wording here. "You shall not make images" should never be in a sentence by itself if it's dependent on a condition that's critical to its meaning, like "to worship".
For instance, imagine if someone said, "You shall not make electronics. You shall not power or use electronics." My first interpretation of this would not be "You shall not make electronics to power or use." I would not then consider myself free to make electronics so long as I did not power or use them. Rather, I would consider myself forbidden from making electronics at all.
Leviticus 26 seems to say it more clearly to me:
"Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God."
I concede that passages like this one and numerous others make it clear (to me) that what makes God jealous is worship of the image, not the image itself. My read is that God seems to be okay with images until you start liking them more than him.
Unfortunately, this does not address the underlying problem that jealousy is a primitive and absurd quality to apply to an all-knowing, all-powerful being who is infinitely wise and infinitely good.
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@janesix
Are you asking what its objective purpose is, or are you asking what purpose humans should assign it?
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I find it very understandable that people don't want to believe we're random accidents living in a meaningless universe.
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--> @RationalMadmanYes, there is a group of alien demigods beneath her that work for her. They are actually the Illuminati we speak of and experiment with many realities like our flat Earth. This is nothing more than a game to them and the 'test' is how soon you work out that you have to ultimately give into the Devil because Heaven is an illusion, nothing more. This is why 'heaven' in Eastern philosophy is literally never being reborn again... Being reincarnated as the best being itself (which would be greater than God and no such being exists and you can't become God).She speaks via her alien minions via clues and the clues are not just hints, they are sometimes things happening to me, events if you will.
Howdy. I don't mind being blocked, but you should probably go ahead and stop @ing me. Thanks.
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@Tradesecret
That's a very interesting and uncommon perspective, Trade. I've never met a Christian who would agree that their personal conversations with God qualify as them "still writing" the Bible. I also haven't run into many Christians who cast critical doubt on these hallelujah personal faith experiences that other Christians advertise. My experience has been that if it praises God, Christians generally cheer it. Do you find Catholics or Protestants more prone to the behavior we're talking about? My guess being Protestants. Evangelical Protestants, specifically.
What do you think of the idea that people need to talk to God in their daily lives, need to feel his presence or guidance in personal moments when neither a Bible or church is near?
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I interact only with people's minds on the internet, so I only want to know about your mind, not your body.
The only time I even think about the physical sex of a member is when I suspect some troll of pretending to be the opposite gender for kicks, like when I'm wondering whether this is a man pretending to be a hot promiscuous young woman.
But when a trans person marks down a gender contrary to their sex, they're just being honest about who they are. When a lying troll marks down a gender contrary to their sex, they're being dishonest about who they are.
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@warren42
You're right, it doesn't prove anything. Unfortunately the case against Kavanaugh didn't prove anything, either.
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@ethang5
No. Somehow bsh1 has gotten Mike to turn over Dart sans oversight the way DDO was turned over to Max and his clique.All moderation decisions are opaque. And though bsh1 says one can protest, he means "protest" secretly to him, as one cannot divulge a mods pm, and it is in the mod's pm that one learns why one was banned. Neat trick huh?So if a mod unfairly bans you, or "allows" himself to be manipulated into sanctioning you, your recourses are fewer and less certain if your sanction was unfair. The mod would have an incentive to keep the reasons for his decision hidden.Ideally each reported post is evaluated independently based on its content, but we know that the more someone has been reported, the more likely their borderline posts are to be judged as crossing the lineSo you "protest" asking the mod to show the CoC violation, and the mod replies, "This is not a discussion." You can see no CoC violation in the post he referenced. The mod is more likely to maintain the abuse if in fact there was no CoC violation!This is what we have now. A clique member from DDO, who 'consulted' on moderation issues with Max, who has become Max to Mike's juggle here. No real oversight. No real consequences.And his old lackies are setting up shop. Shredding the language filter, openly attacking the religion board and it's posters, and constantly pushing to bring every half-baked, drama-prone, DDO idea here.Maybe Mike was one of them all along. Either way, we're locked in. When you see Airmax join the site with fanfair, then you'll know the age of Mike is drawing to a close.
These are serious concerns, eth. I don't like to hear you sounding so fatalistic. When I came back to DART I did notice that the religion forum is a bit worse in terms of hate and contempt posts, but I didn't think things were this bad.
Forbidding users to publicly protest their charges before banning seems like a policy aimed at containing spectacle or controversy, and ensuring the moderator's decision is carried out quickly and discreetly.
But I'm not sure what the point of allowing a user to protest is if all the moderator will say is "this is not a discussion". I'm also surprised by the idea of a moderator refusing to explain how you violated a CoC rule. The CoC itself says they have to. I hope I don't have the full story here.
I know what it felt like to be outside that clique on DDO, and yeah, it did not rock. Some of them just sort of sat around making fun of the religion forum and high fiving each other, blaming the people within the forum for the state it was in, rather than placing any responsibility on those in power for refusing to remove troublemakers or police the forum in any way, even when members within the religion forum made appeals for help. They championed a laissez-faire approach because they felt DDO was fine the way it was, and the only forum that wasn't fine the way it was they dismissed as a worthless cesspool whose wretchedness was its own fault. It did not inspire, shall we say, happy flowery "Smile On Your Brother" feelings.
But Mike and bish have done more in the few months DART has been up than I saw in three years on DDO. And whatever their decisions have been, they've listened to feedback the whole way, which I value highly and also did not see on DDO. Juggle didn't give a sh*t what we thought. I've seen bish stand by the rights of even banned members, which has impressed me. And I do assign some responsibility to myself for never leaving the religion forum on DDO to make myself known outside it. I just didn't feel welcome, so I stayed in my own little circle. Classic human tribal instinct.
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@Earth
openly attacking the religion board and it's postersTo be fair, the Religion board on DDO has always been a cess pit for a long time.
Yeah, but I never understood why that meant I'm an undesirable just because I was a denizen there.
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@ethang5
Would I recognize the thread or threads where it's happening? I've been away for a spell.
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Seems like it would be no sweat to just add another option. I must agree that I am far more interested in the gender of someone's mind than the gender of their body. Their mind is the only thing I interact with online.
Day four and I still have not experienced the editor loading glitch again once. Such an annoyance relief.
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@Mopac
Is it true that there are lies?Of course God is The Truth itself. If you want to hear the case for that, I am currently in a debate with the OP
It's true that there are lies, yes.
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@secularmerlin
I really haven't seen anything at all to suggest otherwise. Have you?
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@secularmerlin
Well, obviously.
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@Mopac
Make them to worship them.The preceding and following verses clear this up handidly.None of these people saying otherwise even respect scripture, they are simply trying to be destructive.
Well I'm not aware of any rule that says only people who respect scripture are allowed to judge it. You'll certainly never catch me saying only people who respect atheism are allowed to judge atheism, heh. But I think it's obvious their motive is to tear apart this passage destructively, yes.
Anyway, this is the verse as I'm reading it:
"You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them."
These sound like separate items to me, in separate sentences. "Don't make them. Don't worship them." Not "don't make them to worship them". I realize Stephen has said this several times already, so sorry if I sound repetitive. I'm just being honest about how it looks to me.
But I acknowledge that the translation of the word "image" is very pivotal here. The NIV uses the word "image", the KJV uses the term "graven image", and the New Living Translation (among others) uses the word "idol". That last one makes the best case for your argument. But saying "you shall not make an image of heaven above or earth beneath or the waters below" still strikes me as a pretty weird and roundabout way of saying "you shall not make idols".
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@secularmerlin
I wouldn't say it's objective, but I would say it's less subjective. We're still always gonna bitch about what works and what doesn't, what goals are worth investing resources in, etc. But I'm often uncertain of justice, as well. I find reality an experience of persistent doubt.
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@Stephen
I'm not sure about the meaning of Exodus 20:4. To me it reads like "don't make an image of anything" or "don't make images".Yes very clearly written isn't it. Of "ANYTHING", but you may have seen above, some just won't accept it even though the dictate is clear as day, they will rewrite what is clearly written bu their own god and try to tell us god didn't mean "ANYTHING".
Whoops, missed this.
I remain uncertain of the meaning of the passage because it's just hard for me to imagine that a tribe would want a God who totally forbade images. It would mean they wouldn't even be able to use something as practical as a map, which would be an enormous inconvenience. Humans tend to create gods who generally approve of their culture and way of life, which is why the OT God says it's okay for the Hebrews to have slaves so long as they follow certain guidelines.
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@Stephen
So you think river = healing, snake = river. Interesting. I would have guessed the shedding of its snakeskin had more to do with it. Rebirth or rejuvenation or something.
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@secularmerlin
Do you think justice is only concerned with utility? Or do you think it's also concerned with a sense of balance, with what people deserve?
A broader way to ask your question would probably be, should we afford human rights to those who violate the human rights of others? But to answer you -- it depends on the right, and the crime. For instance, denying an offender the right to freedom ensures he is off the streets and cannot harm more victims. Denying an offender the right to counsel will only undermine the fairness of the justice system and the basic civil liberties of all citizens.
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@Mopac
I'd like to hear what you think about "god is not truth itself because god could lie".
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@Mopac
I guess the deal is that the scripture doesn't just say not to worship images. It says not to make them at all.
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@Greyparrot
I think people are just going to get used to the fact that this is the way things turned out.Lol, no they are not. You don't get to slander people without some kind of blowback, even if the public has to take it out on the 49 Senators that allowed the charade to play out in full.
What are you saying?
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@Stephen
Reminds me of the Rod of Asclepius.That is exactly what it is, Castin. It is the sign of healing and has been since man developed a brain. I have stated here many times now that one can see this sign of healing on every ambulance in the West it adorns the sides of ambulances, can be seen hospital lobbies and even on Fire Engines in the United States.It is the sign of the Sumerian Lord Enki, the creator God of Mesopotamia copied by Babylonians, Akkadians, Egyptians then Hebrews. It is the same Caduceus of the Greeks known as the Staff of Hermes. This staff was the Sigil/ symbol of this very flesh and blood Sumerian Lord Enki, lord among lords that is being referred to as the serpent in the biblical creation story.Symbol of Lord Ea/ Enk 1000 's of years before the bible was even thought aboutGreek CaduceusIt is no coincidence that Moses chose this Symbol, It was the sign of the lord that opposed his half brother Enlil in the garden of the Edin.And this is why King Hezekiah took great exception to this particular staff of this particular god carried once by his chosen servant Moses. Ezekiah, you see had been worshiping the other half brother Enli.
I'm always curious about the origin of the symbolism. How did snakes and staffs become associated with healing? I read a theory that it comes from the ancient practice of extracting Guinea worms from ulcers by wrapping them around a stick and slowly rolling the stick to pull them out. Gross but interesting.
I had a hard time following all you said there, probably due to mediocre intelligence and my unfamiliarity with the involved details. I'm aware the caduceus and Rod of Asclepius are often conflated, largely due to a U.S. medical corps getting it wrong and popularizing the misconception. Asclepius was foremost the god of medicine; Hermes was foremost the god of messengers, travelers. I really need to brush up on my Sumerian and Mesopotamian gods.
I'm not sure about the meaning of Exodus 20:4. To me it reads like "don't make an image of anything" or "don't make images". Since I don't see any Jews or Christians obeying that rule, they must not be interpreting it that way. Which is fortunate. Telling humans not to create images of what they see is telling humans not to be human.
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@Mopac
You're fussing over the case of one letter? I'm more interested in your response to the substance of his post.
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@Goldtop
Fogle's psychiatrist said he had replaced his overeating disorder with "soft" pedophilia.I don't recall ever seeing that one on a Subway menu.
Apologies, I misquoted. The psychiatrist said "weak" or "mild" pedophilia, not soft. I trust that clears things up. Now do you remember it from the Subway menu?
All the food was acting like a cork that kept the pedophilia in, see. Then Subway uncorked him and all the pedophilia spilled out. Trust me, I'm quoting legitimate psychological science here.
In seriousness, I have a hard time seeing pedophilic tendencies as something a person can spontaneously develop later in life. I can only assume that the predisposition was always there inside him, but only surfaced after his main vice was taken away, creating a need for a new one. It makes me wonder if he was always attracted to children but was just too fat to catch them before.
I sense that I should feel guilty about that last sentence on many levels. Mm... no, too tired, too lazy, don't care. Hitting send.
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@drafterman
Good point. But I think humans have a much better track record of choosing survival over sex than insects do.
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I read six more families of Sandy Hook survivors sued him this year. Plus an FBI agent.
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@Tradesecret
That's interesting. Most of the theists I talk to describe a more personal one-on-one thing without the Bible or scripture necessarily being involved.
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@drafterman
Because it's exciting. This type of sexually-charged, taboo activity results in a release of dopamine associated with the initial phases of sexual arousal. Dopamine is also one of the neurotransmitters commonly associated with drug addiction. Basically: it got him high. And when people have that feeling, they are usually willing to abandon common sense and self-preservation to "chase" it and maintain it.
As I said, I'm sure he got off on it. But the only thing stronger than the sexual instinct is the survival instinct, and it's like he didn't even have one.
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Many cultures have had beliefs in mother goddesses. It makes sense to me. Birth, nature, creation, motherhood.
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@ethang5
The worst that could happen to me is to have my daughters, whom I would shield with my life, look at me like a rapist and a lying drunkard, causing them to doubt my Master and King because of lies said about me. That would be a horror I would not soon get over.And those scars on my daughters would always be there to let the people who so scarred them know, if you ever wish to see how vile I am compared to the Jesus you call evil,.....
Kavanaugh's family would never believe the accusations against him. If he'd been dismissed, they would have stood by him. That doesn't mean it wouldn't have been a serious blow to his life. In time he would have recovered and faded from the public memory, but there would be a permanent scar.
I really don't know what you mean about doubting your Master and King or evil Jesus. Are you talking about that political cartoon of one of Kavanaugh's daughters praying? I thought that was so f*cking low.
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Enlighten me on how they met, when they met, why he divorced his previous wife and what a deep, soulful lover Mr. Trump is to Mrs. Model
They met at a party in New York in 1998. He divorced his previous wife after he committed adultery, though I believe she also accused him of assault. I have no idea whether Melania finds him a satisfying lover, but my guess would be she doesn't and that their marriage is generally loveless.
I don't understand what any of this has to do with what I should think of her as first lady. But if she did turn out to have been a prostitute, I would probably respect her more. It would mean she comes from a background that is shamed and debased by society, but must hold her own in an environment dominated by well-educated political socialites from upper class well-to-do American backgrounds. It would mean a call girl from an obscure country most Americans can't even find on a map wound up the first lady of the United States and had to step up to that duty and build something in this world.
And for the record, I don't think being a prostitute is shameful. Though I realize you didn't say it was.
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@Greyparrot
Do you think his good name is cleared or should he file a lawsuit?
Against Ford? Not the best move for him politically. It's classier to hold his head up high and move on. Plus he knows that Ford never wanted this public spectacle. If she'd gotten her way, this whole matter would have been handled privately, and the exact same decision would have been reached, minus the media circus and the crying. And she was a pretty brave and credible witness, I thought. It might look bad to go after her. Certainly it would reinflame this whole national battle as people rallied behind her again, and behind Kavanaugh. I'm sure he doesn't want that.
As for whether I think his good name has been cleared, I have no idea. I don't think determined minds on either side have changed. I think people are just going to get used to the fact that this is the way things turned out.
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@Buddamoose
Whoa nelly. I can see you have very strong feelings about this. I wish you wouldn't jump to conclusions about my beliefs, though. I never said innocent until proven guilty doesn't matter. Or that the burden of proof is on the accused. Those are some pretty headscratchingly extreme claims, Budds.
Defamation and libel can definitely ruin lives, but it's quite another thing entirely to talk about criminal conviction, where the case against you is being legitimized by the State itself in a criminal trial, and, if found guilty, you outright lose your freedom. I also think whether there's enough to find you guilty of a felony and whether there's enough to disqualify you from a job are two very different things. But my big disconnect with people is that I don't think the Committee had the authority to convict anyone of anything and I would have considered him innocent until proven guilty regardless of the outcome of the hearing. People on both sides were acting like confirmation would be validation of his innocence, and rejection would be validation of his guilt. But all the Republican Committee's decision was going to tell me is whether the Republican Committee considers him fit for the position.
I'm kind of irritated with the Dems, honestly. They knew there could be no hard evidence for something that happened 30+ years ago and this would go nowhere, but they did it anyway, putting Ford and Kavanaugh through a pointless ordeal. All it did is make conservatives twice as angry as usual and twice more likely to jump down my throat. And they already had anger management problems and jumping-down-my-throat tendencies to begin with. I'm also seriously concerned that what the Dems did here is create a Supreme Court Justice with a personal grudge against liberals. Like, as a judge, can you look at my liberal ass fairly when you watched liberal mobs chanting for your downfall? That's some serious shit. On the flip side, I guess it could have given Kavanaugh valuable experience about what it's like to be the one in the hot seat being judged, something too few judges understand or go through themselves, if you ask me. They get too comfortable up there on that high seat and forget what it is to feel powerless and intimidated.
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@ethang5
It's weird to me how people kept treating this like a criminal trial instead of basically a job interview. There were no convictions on the table. The worst that could have happened is him not getting a job.
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@DebateArt.com
Niiiice. I haven't gotten the glitch again once so far.
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@Mopac
What would you say if I told you that no, Satan is the Ultimate Reality, and if you deny it you're being insensible because Ultimate Reality can't be denied, if you know truth then you know Satan, they're the same thing.
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@ethang5
It just seems weird to me, because liberals and progressives usually push for equality and justice and civil rights. A better tomorrow, etc. This doesn't seem very compatible with a rejection of ideals to me.
We won't make America great again. America was never that great.-NY GovernorAmerica is great. But why is it great?America differs from other countries in that it is always moving towards the just, the true, the right.Other countries had to be forced or pressured into doing the right thing. America has always been able to do so on it's own. No matter what wrong we have done, we, and we alone, have recognized it, attacked it, and corrected it.It's like America has a built in immune system. Women's rights, racism, bigotry, corruption, equality, child welfare, world policing, have all been corrected by us. Sometimes with great turmoil, but we found the way to a more just society. We are great because we have a great system, baked into our country's DNA.America's greatness is why the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden, flock to us. This is why Hawaii, and Korea, Panama, Germany, Laos, and Japan are free and prosperous. A lesser country would have just swallowed them up after defeat.America's greatness is why the world doesn't speak German today but English, and why there is a state of Israel, why Isis and the Taliban have not murdered everyone in the Middle East, and why a poor farmer in Honduras has a smart phone.Show me another country with a self-healing immune system.The governor of NY is a blazing idiot. Some have called for his removal, but I say no, let him stay. He is who New Yorkers deserve.
What do you think of the revolutions and reform movements that happen in other countries? There are a lot. Are they not comparable? Do you think all such instances were somehow forced?
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