Fiannan

Jason, I am not making this a morality v. immorality thing (at least not in the way it might be generally discussed in the US). It actually is more related to ideology -- one's very basic or even sub conscious perceptions of the world, their place in it and the values they place in accomplishments in life. If a country made up of Muslims bought into the "values" of Europe they would suffer the same decline as Europe is facing. If a nation of atheists were highly nationalistic and (while rejecting religion) were highly prideful in their heritage and advancing whatever cause they had they would likely have a high birthrate (evidence for this might be the higher birthrate enjoyed by the Warsaw Pact under communism). The worse combination though seems to be lack of religion, lack of national or family pride, hyper materialism, feminism and socialism rolled into one. That's why the EU is in such sad demographic shape.

Okay, now I have to defend Europe's morality? Yes, I will. Europeans are no more likely to be lacking in morals than any other people. In fact, countries like Sweden probably have lower numbers of sexual partners than the US does for its people. The problem is the view of life. Secularism ignores God or rejects God. The average Italian Catholic is not an agnostic or atheist infidel, instead the young have put materialism ahead of maternalism -- same is evidently occuring in Ireland. The average Scandinavian is indoctrinated into the idea that religion is for losers and one should devote their lives to individual fulfillment (hedonism) and feminism. Germans probably have a low birthrate because so much of the world seems committed to rubbing their collective noses into the brief history of the 3rd. Reich and making one ashamed of their heritage. A secular climate coupled with hatred of one's past and devotion to materialim leads to people who are afraid to commit and even more afraid to have children. If they do have kids there is little focus on the family as an autonomous unit (witness how Germany continues to persecute families who try to homeschool) so one should not be surprised at the lower birthrates. Of course, if people would absolutely reject the current system this could turn around but there is little in the ideological history of Europe to support the rejection of the prevailing norms. The thing the US should learn from Europe is what danger is posed by adopting such "values" and sinking into the oblivion Europe is heading.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08...ion-cover_x.htm Interesting how the lack of religion is now becomming more and more recognized as the reason birthrates are so low in Euroland. I have made it a project to finish reading the Koran -- I suppoose one part that may be inspired is the stress that nations come along, grow in prosperity which leads to ignorance coupled with arogance, and then God wipes them out. The Koran uses the phrase often that societies are given a time to be destroyed when they reject God. Europe is the proof.

Okay, I am no metrosexual blue-state liberal democrat -- in fact my ring finger is quite a bit longer than my index finger (indicating a large level of testosterone in my developmental years) but I happen to like shopping with my wife.

You know, if you want to stop a lot of deaths of young people the best thing you could do is make school districts financially responsible for bullying behavior. That's right, most school shooters have been victims of intense verbal and physical abuse from classmates. most victims of such behavior just live with the abuse, others run away while a significant number takes their own lives (although a 14 year old boy who hangs himself to escape bullying will get no publicity while the same 14 year old who goes on a shooting rampage will). American school culture is absolutely and categorically sick! Academically it is fine when compared to other industrial cultures but in terms of wellness it is sick. The social conformity promoted by our authoritarian culture and maintained by our school system's promotion of social castes and materialism is contrary to learning and psychological wellbeing. Then if some poor kid does go to a school and complain because she or he is getting harassed for being different the school officials (often washed up coaches who get an education degree over a couple of summers and then go administrative) think the kid needs to toughen up a bit. Of course they might do something if the victim is gay or an ethnic minority (don't want bad publicity for the school) but even then there is no garauntee. Yes, I have a negative view of American education. I also have a negative view of simple solutions like banning trenchcoats or blaming Maralyn Manson music for violence. Guns are not the problem either. If you really want to reduce violence go after the rotten system of education in this country, sue the pants off school districts that refuse to protect kids and...well, I'll save my opinions for dealing with sterilizing drug addicted women later.

Sunny Surffer states: Do you REALLY want to live in a country that only the state has weapons? That certainly goes against everything Jefferson and Madison taught. It even goes against the warning my state's governor gave when he was a state senator and was visiting my campus in the 1980s. He said he felt very uncomfortable with the idea of only the police and military having weapons -- and this guy is a liberal Democrat! Oh, and if you want to see what happens when a government goes beserk read up a bit on the extermination orders against Mormons. Think Joesph Smith supported gun control? Think government can't go beserk again? And please, while a school shooting is sad and tragic please tell me how many people died yesterday in car crashes caused by drunk drivers. I think the figure is 70 per day -- men, women, children and babies who die every day and get barely any media coverage. And if you go to the FBI's official site you will also see that violent crime rates are down and decreasing -- yet people watch horrific crime stories on the daily news that they think crime is skyrocketing.

Sweden peaceful? You really don't want to get me started on that one. Also, the last thing I would expect to hear from anyone who knows anything about the past relationship between the Mormons and the US government is that only the government should own guns. Also, I'd really endorse people watching John Stossel's "Scaring Ourselves to Death". If I recall right 70 children die each year from drowning in mop bucket water -- and what's the death toll for school shootings in 2 years, 29? Aside from bullying which is a big problem in US schools (and gets little attention in the press) you are far safer in school than on vacation outside of school. Please people, get a grip -- the media focuses on the sensational and that which will catch audience shares in the market. It's actually the same concept as porn overall. However, things that are truly dangerous, and kill many, many people often is ignored in the corporate media while extremely rare incidents get pumped up way out of proportion to what they truly pose as threats to the population.

Strawberry Fields, fifty years ago media was not linked worldwide in the same context as today. Now a local tragedy gets worldwide coverage -- school shootings are garaunteed to get worldwide coverage while at the same time the killing of a police officer and his dog in Florida yesterday and the shooting of an officer in Georgia (he may have died by now) get far less sensational headlines. The effect is that people get all freaked out over what's happening in the schools but overall violence like this in schools is quite rare. Media increases the level of anxiety and stress though with the way it is covered.

Mega congradulations to you and your family!!!! I hope everything goes well for your wife and family.

Sad, but tragedies happen. Can't get all distressed about it as it appears to be a local event.

Well, what passes for mainstream Christianity today would have been denounced at mainstream Secular Humanism by most Christian leaders a century ago if they could have seen the state of Christianity as it has devolved into today.

I had not heard of The Cave but when I looked up reviews it looked kinda bad. Then again, some people like chick flicks.

given magic mushrooms.

Outshined, I watched "Underworld 2" this weekend -- I have to admit that it was also a very good vampire flick aw well (actually better than part 1).

Wow, and they guy never even provided his Nigerian bank account to put the money into?

Now while people get into wacky sonspiracy theories (where are those tin foil hats folk?) what, Doofus Reid gets little commentary? Personally I find it disturbing that his name pops up on forums discussing politics in cyberspace and the fact that he is mormon gets connected to his sorry excuse for leadership. Also, isn't it about time the small number of mormons who have used polygamy for political gain (most Mormon politicians seem to ignore the issue but then again most are libertarianish Republicans) just knock it off?! Going after Tom Green just to make things look pretty for the Olympic games in 2002 backfired by giving worldwide publicity to the idea that Mormons still have polygamy -- ever notice that most people can't tell the difference between a Sunni and Shia Muslim -- what make's you think they know the difference between a polygamist sect and the LDS Church? So if Reid generates publicity for his hypocritical and (as the author suggests in the link) moral relativism it can only serve to hurt the image of the LDS Church.

From WorldNetDaily: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=52013 So Senator Reid has decided to go after polygamists. Now I am sure the party for which he is a leader would have no problem if all the women involved in polygamy decided to leave their husbands and become ardent lesbians. Then again, if one chooses to be heterosexual then (if they get pregnant) there's always the wonderful practice of abortion -- which is also a sacred thing for most Democratic liberals. How can Reid justify working to further the interests of the Democratic Party -- a party that if he tried to be nominated to the high court would oppose him since his history has been anti-abortion ? Then he goes after people merely for living according to their religion (gee, isn't there something about that in the Articles of Faith?) just because their ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE is polygamy? What makes this guy tick?

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article...slim/article.do Now that's real tolerance, isn't it?

http://www.michellemalkin.com/

But PC, unfortunantly the white supremicist garners little support in the Christian world while the forces of extremism and holy war find comfort in much of the Muslim world. The ball is in their court -- it's time for their leaders to show us they are part of the 21st. Century and not the 7th.

Borderline personality disorder -- on a massive scale?

You know, I was actually discussing some of the stuff I read in this thread with my wife as we were returning from the temple yesterday. She brought up a good point. She felt this should not even be something discussed in public as we all have different definitions of of what is good and bad sexually and we all have different ideas of what is and isn't pornography -- therefore we risk offending others when we are actually aiming for the same target (I assume none of the posters here are saying we should adopt the sexual attitudes of Bill Clinton or that we should all be viewing the Playboy channel for family home evening). Maybe people need to be more open about their likes and dislikes before they get married. Is it a good idea for someone who has a strong sex drive to marry someone who feels it's a burden to engage in sexual activity? Isn't the time to discover such things before one gets sealed? However, I will also note that repression can either lead to neurosis or to the very behavior we don't want to see. From what I understand the country with the strangest pre-occupation with strange sex is Japan -- yet it is also the country that censored the nude pictures of Britney Spears she did when she was pregnant (in my personal opinion Demi Moore and Britney Spears both have done a great service to pregnant women's self image and a positive view of childbirth by doing very tasteful nude while pregnant layouts for the mainstream media). One can joke that with Freud you can explain everything as dealing with sex. The irony is that he really did get it right, but in his hatred for his Jewish heritage he was blinded to the deeper spiritual implications of his theories. Faith is the force that binds the universe together but sex is the energy that expands creation. The problem I have with pornography is not the nudity -- not even the sexuality -- but that it more often than not tries to entice us to direct those sexual energies that are so importnat to bind us to our spouce as well as give us energy to live and create away from God's purpose and towards a dead-end approach to life (hedonism and ammorality dry up our life force, not expand it). Sex is a healing force, a force that can keep us younger and healthier and it attracts us. Pornography is a substitute -- like trying to get nutrition from a can of diet cola (it might taste good and have some boost to it but it ultimately drains one of nutrition). So in most cases I would not suggest freaking out if you catch your teen looking up porn, or your wife or husband. For the teen, one must (MUST) take the opportunity to teach about the proper role of sex and sexuality from God's perspective but NEVER condemn the teen for being a bad person for being curious. For the married adult porn is generally not a danger (if you happen to catch your spouce watching the midnight movie on some cable networks that show soft-core porn late at night) but if that spouce becomes pre-occupied with porn and even substitutes it for normal sex with their spouce then that's when it is dangerous beyond just a question of whether it is appropriate or not.

Have relations been good at any time since the 7th. Century?

Containing a nuke

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/somali...8334739295.html Just heard some Islamic representatives say that Islam was not in any way spread by violence in the past. Guess all my history books are wrong. Good thing peace and tolerance is the rule today.