declanr

I teach martial arts, and have a few recommendations. The first question is of course the training goal, it seems since your child has special needs the goal is mainly self-confidence? Not knowing what kind of special needs-I would also factor in any learning disabilities, physical/coordination impairments etc would also play into what styles. Many Tae Kwon do or karate schools have long forms to memorize which could be problematic for a SN child and frustrating, Judo is a more kinesthestic based art, and could be easier and more fun! A kids boxing class could be good, judo, or kickboxing. I would find the instructor, class, learning enviorment that is most comfortable for you child as a focus than worry about style in this case. Try a few schools out, be careful what waivers and contracts you sign, and if you have to sign a contract I would insist on a provision for removal based on the special needs of the child. good luck D

I'm a guy, and I love them. They improve my posture, and although like one poster said its like not drinking soda for a day, but those are the extra calories I wouldn't have walked on a daily basis anyway...they also helped my back, but I think partly due to fixing my posture. They do make me taller FWIW, I'm already 6 ft so I don't exactly need the boost.

FYI, the "we will never be wrong" type of blind follower-ship above was exactly the Nazi's rationale in defending themselves for perpetrating the holocaust. Disagreement should always be welcome so long as it is not an ad hominim attack. Dec

It depends on your state law, but I do know that it can be considered a "conditional gift", meaning if you marry or stay married the gift remains valid, if not it is revokable and returnable. Also to keep in mind is the normal disproportion of a wifes ring cost and the mans, normally the wifes is more expensive, do you think it really fair that each person keep their own given the disparity in value? Hope mediation went well. best Dec

Seido has an incase cover that is awesome Applications are dependent on your interests, I like the news (USA today is good), and weather chanel app. Stay away from apps with low ratings, read review before buying or downloading free apps. AFter a few years of using the iphone I switched to the Google phone (nexus one), it has almost twice the screen resolution and processing power, also it has mostly the same apps and I can run it on Tmobile at half the monthly cost!! It is coming for verizon soon....

So sorry to hear this bubbaman. I think dreams can go either way. A friend of mine is a neurophysiologist, and tells me that dreams are a way for the brain to organize and discard information and that meaning shouldn't be very relevant beyond perhaps the generic topic of what you think is relevant in your life as an issue (which obviously this is). Most times the frontal lobe is not engaged and thus dreams aren't really very determinative for decision making, etc. A good article he reffered me to is here dreams - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com, the bottom of the page has many good references. An unfaithful wife that won't address her alcoholism is a serious problem, and I don't think it is unreasonable for you to want a divorce, certainly your kids might be better off being raised in a happier single parent home than in that situation. If you could forgive the infidelity and get her help perhaps it is salvageable, but that is a tall order, and a very personal and fact specific decision. Either way, I wish you the best and hope you and your children end up happy and healthy regardless of the means. DEc

Arrogance seems to be the point in which you cross the line from confident, to obnoxious, narcissistic and over-confident. I was in a band once, and I understand the situation, it seems every band and some point has a guy like that. Tamiele pointed out a big problem with many people who may not normally be arrogant, or over-confident. But they have made up their mind that the way they are living their life be it by being a good LDS member, or whatever, is the best and only way to live, then they look down on others who do not. This is piety, or religious arrogance, and I think its one of the worst forms of arrogance. There are around a Billion Muslims in the world who "know" Mohammad is the prophet and Islam is the one true religion, I think at the point a person can say "I know", instead of "I have faith that...", or "I believe that..." X is true, they have reached the point of religious arrogance. The same goes for Christians, Jews, etc. Oh, and happy easter! Dec

Exactly. It is very ironic and hypocritical. Personally the more research I do, the more I feel that there could be a God (I hope so), but that no one religion owns the truth, or has the elite "gospel" or doctrine. Statistically religion is a function of geography. Where you are born most likely determines what you define and believe in as "truth". This should say much to any intelligent person, and should signal their need to evaluate things more objectively and less blindly, unfortunately, many people are not capable or intelligent enough for this type of circumspection. Dec

And Islam rules you out because of that fact. This is my point....

I am not a member, just an investigator FYI. But I have seen a simliar situation with my best friend, his wife decided to become "re-born" all of the sudden, and it put his family through some turmoil, he is now divorced, and his young son pays the biggest price. She insisted he go to church with her, he refused, she would pray for him, see her church leaders about him, try to get other members over to "be friend" him. All of this had a very negative effect on him, he felt extremely disrespected as a person, and felt that his wife was no longer the person he married. They went to counseling, but ultimately it had to end, I think a larger issue besides her attempted conversion attempts were about how to raise the son. He wanted the son to get a more rounded education, and not pigeon hole him into a faith as a child. I dont know if that helps you in any way, just my observations. I think communication is key, and I would avoid trying to bring her to your bishop for advice, go to a neutral source for counseling, so she does not feel ganged up on and work it out. Good Luck Dec

So basically you are saying any research is poor if one does not "seek the godhead" ..pray, etc.? This brings me back to my earlier point, millions of people DO seek god, just not the christian god, and have just as strong a faith, and they still have the same evidential problems. Fable stories of evolution? Are you aware that the debate among scientists is over concerning evolution? There are millions of pieces of corroborating evidence for evolution, not one against, yet you are quick to call it a fable when you believe a book thrown together from many 300+ years after events happened, by anonymous authors, translated and edited multiple times? It is incredible to me that your powers of reason are so lacking and bias toward your blind faith. This is poor reasoning, and demonstrates no evidence at all, it appears from reading history Josephs character and reliability are somewhat questionable. You are making a great assumption in claiming the Joseph saw or heard anything, again, no evidence. What about all the other prophets in the all the other religions who claim visions? I understand what you are telling me, and I have read the bible, part of the book of Mormon, and numerous other religious texts. Why do you not subscribe to the five pillars of Islam? Have you read and prayed about them sincerely? Have you prayed 5 times a day and lived by the laws of Islam to find out for yourself? I can go on and on just as you did but for pages and pages of other examples asking you to do the same method of "research" for all of the other religions. Is there more objective evidence for the bible and the book of mormon being true than for the Torah, the Quran, the Vedic Scriptures, The Tao Te Ching? Thanks for the reply, Dec

Excellent, thanks again. Dec

I would think it would be possible, but it would take work, I found this link, I can't vouch for it, but it would be worth a try! How to Raise Your Child's IQ, Guaranteed Oh, and here is an article on WebMD with good info: Can You Boost Your Child?s IQ?

I do not believe in the death penalty, it is much simpler for me than a morality v. society question, as humans we are of course subject to error, the DP is irreversible error. Also in this Country I believe it is more costly to execute somebody that to simply incarcerate them for life.

This poster really drives home the principle behind why I am searching in the way that I am. in the same sentence this person said their faith is blind, but then said they "know without a shadow of a doubt." This is extremely contradictory, and insulting to the human intellect. What this quote really means, is candyprpl believes because of faith. That is fine, but lets call it what it is. The presence of an idea or belief in your consciousness does not constitute knowledge, a person can have false ideas and false beliefs. If one is to acquire knowledge, one must have a method of distinguishing truth from falsity. As I have said before simply reading a book, praying, and getting a personal subjective feeling/validation about those thoughts has led billions of people to other faiths, how is their faith less valid? If you say its not, then by this standard, no faith has more or less truth than any other, and it doesn't matter to God if you are LDS, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, etc. This is why I ask these questions, and bother to do actual research. Dec

Thank you!

Simply information or research that refutes the above....

Ok, here is perhaps a shorter item to respond to: --Amazingly, the question of an actual historical Jesus rarely confronts the religious believer. The power of faith has so forcefully driven the minds of most believers, and even apologetic scholars, that the question of reliable evidence gets obscured by tradition, religious subterfuge, and outrageous claims. The following gives a brief outlook about the claims of a historical Jesus and why the evidence the Christians present us cannot serve as justification for reliable evidence for a historical Jesus. ALL CLAIMS OF JESUS DERIVE FROM HEARSAY ACCOUNTS No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus got written well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings. Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, I will use the information and dates to show that even if these sources did not come from interpolations, they could still not serve as reliable evidence for a historical Jesus, simply because all sources derive from hearsay accounts. Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness' own knowledge. Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay provides no proof or good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it. If you do not understand this, imagine yourself confronted with a charge for a crime which you know you did not commit. You feel confident that no one can prove guilt because you know that there exists no evidence whatsoever for the charge against you. Now imagine that you stand present in a court of law that allows hearsay as evidence. When the prosecution presents its case, everyone who takes the stand against you claims that you committed the crime, not as a witness themselves, but solely because other people said so. None of these other people, mind you, ever show up in court, nor can anyone find them. Hearsay does not work as evidence because we have no way of knowing whether the person lies, or simply bases his or her information on wrongful belief or bias. We know from history about witchcraft trials and kangaroo courts that hearsay provides neither reliable nor fair statements of evidence. We know that mythology can arise out of no good information whatsoever. We live in a world where many people believe in demons, UFOs, ghosts, or monsters, and an innumerable number of fantasies believed as fact taken from nothing but belief and hearsay. It derives from these reasons why hearsay cannot serves as good evidence, and the same reasoning must go against the claims of a historical Jesus or any other historical person. Authors of ancient history today, of course, can only write from indirect observation in a time far removed from their aim. But a valid historian's own writing gets cited with sources that trace to the subject themselves, or to eyewitnesses and artifacts. For example a historian today who writes about the life of George Washington, of course, can not serve as an eyewitness, but he can provide citations to documents which give personal or eyewitness accounts. None of the historians about Jesus give reliable sources to eyewitnesses, therefore all we have remains as hearsay. THE BIBLE GOSPELS The most "authoritative" accounts of a historical Jesus come from the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not come into the Bible as original and authoritative from the authors themselves, but rather from the influence of early church fathers, especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the middle of the second century. Many heretical gospels existed by that time, but Irenaeus considered only some of them for mystical reasons. He claimed only four in number; according to Romer, "like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures-- the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John (see Against the Heresies). The four gospels then became Church cannon for the orthodox faith. Most of the other claimed gospel writings were burned, destroyed, or lost." [Romer] Elaine Pagels writes: "Although the gospels of the New Testament-- like those discovered at Nag Hammadi-- are attributed to Jesus' followers, no one knows who actually wrote any of them." [Pagels, 1995] Not only do we not know who wrote them, consider that none of the Gospels existed during the alleged life of Jesus, nor do the unknown authors make the claim to have met an earthly Jesus. Add to this that none of the original gospel manuscripts exist; we only have copies of copies. The consensus of many biblical historians put the dating of the earliest Gospel, that of Mark, at sometime after 70 C.E., and the last Gospel, John after 90 C.E. [Pagels, 1995; Helms]. This would make it some 40 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus that we have any Gospel writings that mention him! Elaine Pagels writes that "the first Christian gospel was probably written during the last year of the war, or the year it ended. Where it was written and by whom we do not know; the work is anonymous, although tradition attributes it to Mark..." [Pagels, 1995] The traditional Church has portrayed the authors as the apostles Mark, Luke, Matthew, & John, but scholars know from critical textural research that there simply occurs no evidence that the gospel authors could have served as the apostles described in the Gospel stories. Yet even today, we hear priests and ministers describing these authors as the actual disciples of Christ. Many Bibles still continue to label the stories as "The Gospel according to St. Matthew," "St. Mark," "St. Luke," St. John." No apostle would have announced his own sainthood before the Church's establishment of sainthood. But one need not refer to scholars to determine the lack of evidence for authorship. As an experiment, imagine the Gospels without their titles. See if you can find out from the texts who wrote them; try to find their names. Even if the texts supported the notion that the apostles wrote them, consider that the average life span of humans in the first century came to around 30, and very few people lived to 70. If the apostles births occured at about the same time as the alleged Jesus, and wrote their gospels in their old age, that would put Mark at least 70 years old, and John at over 110. The gospel of Mark describes the first written Bible gospel. And although Mark appears deceptively after the Matthew gospel, the gospel of Mark got written at least a generation before Matthew. From its own words, we can deduce that the author of Mark had neither heard Jesus nor served as his personal follower. Whoever wrote the gospel, he simply accepted the mythology of Jesus without question and wrote a crude an ungrammatical account of the popular story at the time. Any careful reading of the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) will reveal that Mark served as the common element between Matthew and Luke and gave the main source for both of them. Of Mark's 666* verses, some 600 appear in Matthew, some 300 in Luke. According to Randel Helms, the author of Mark, stands at least at a third remove from Jesus and more likely at the fourth remove. [Helms] * Most Bibles show 678 verses for Mark, not 666, but many Biblical scholars think the last 12 verses came later from interpolation. The earliest manuscripts and other ancient sources do not have Mark 16: 9-20. Moreover the text style does not match and the transition between verse 8 and 9 appears awkward. Even some of today's Bibles such as the NIV exclude the last 12 verses. The author of Matthew had obviously gotten his information from Mark's gospel and used them for his own needs. He fashioned his narrative to appeal to Jewish tradition and Scripture. He improved the grammar of Mark's Gospel, corrected what he felt theologically important, and heightened the miracles and magic. The author of Luke admits himself as an interpreter of earlier material and not an eyewitness (Luke 1:1-4). Many scholars think the author of Luke lived as a gentile, or at the very least, a hellenized Jew and even possibly a woman. He (or she) wrote at a time of tension in the Roman empire along with its fever of persecution. Many modern scholars think that the Gospel of Matthew and Luke got derived from the Mark gospel and a hypothetical document called "Q" (German Quelle, which means "source"). [Helms; Wilson] . However, since we have no manuscript from Q, no one could possibly determine its author or where or how he got his information or the date of its authorship. Again we get faced with unreliable methodology and obscure sources. John, the last appearing Bible Gospel, presents us with long theological discourses from Jesus and could not possibly have come as literal words from a historical Jesus. The Gospel of John disagrees with events described in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Moreover the unknown author(s) of this gospel wrote it in Greek near the end of the first century, and according to Bishop Shelby Spong, the book "carried within it a very obvious reference to the death of John Zebedee (John 21:23)." [spong] Please understand that the stories themselves cannot serve as examples of eyewitness accounts since they came as products of the minds of the unknown authors, and not from the characters themselves. The Gospels describe narrative stories, written almost virtually in the third person. People who wish to portray themselves as eyewitnesses will write in the first person, not in the third person. Moreover, many of the passages attributed to Jesus could only have come from the invention of its authors. For example, many of the statements of Jesus claim to have come from him while allegedly alone. If so, who heard him? It becomes even more marked when the evangelists report about what Jesus thought. To whom did Jesus confide his thoughts? Clearly, the Gospels employ techniques that fictional writers use. In any case the Gospels can only serve, at best, as hearsay, and at worst, as fictional, mythological, or falsified stories. OTHER NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS Even in antiquity people like Origen and Eusebius raised doubts about the authenticity of other books in the New Testament such as Hebrews, James, John 2 & 3, Peter 2, Jude, and Revelation. Martin Luther rejected the Epistle of James calling it worthless and an "epistle of straw" and questioned Jude, Hebrews and the Apocalypse in Revelation. Nevertheless, all New Testament writings came well after the alleged death of Jesus from unknown authors (with the possible exception of Paul, although still after the alleged death). Epistles of Paul: Paul's biblical letters (epistles) serve as the oldest surviving Christian texts, written probably around 60 C.E. Most scholars have little reason to doubt that Paul wrote some of them himself. However, there occurs not a single instance in all of Paul's writings that he ever meets or sees an earthly Jesus, nor does he give any reference to Jesus' life on earth. Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come from other believers or his imagination. Hearsay. Epistle of James: Although the epistle identifies a James as the letter writer, but which James? Many claim him as the gospel disciple but the gospels mention several different James. Which one? Or maybe this James has nothing to do with any of the gospel James. Perhaps this writer comes from any one of innumerable James outside the gospels. James served as a common name in the first centuries and we simply have no way to tell who this James refers to. More to the point, the Epistle of James mentions Jesus only once as an introduction to his belief. Nowhere does the epistle reference a historical Jesus and this alone eliminates it from an historical account. [1] Epistles of John: The epistles of John, the Gospel of John, and Revelation appear so different in style and content that they could hardly have the same author. Some suggest that these writings of John come from the work of a group of scholars in Asia Minor who followed a "John" or they came from the work of church fathers who aimed to further the interests of the Church. Or they could have simply come from people also named John (a very common name). No one knows. Also note that nowhere in the body of the three epistles of "John" does it mention a John. In any case, the epistles of John say nothing about seeing an earthly Jesus. Not only do we not know who wrote these epistles, they can only serve as hearsay accounts. [2] Epistles of Peter: Many scholars question the authorship of Peter of the epistles. Even within the first epistle, it says in 5:12 that Silvanus wrote it. Most scholars consider the second epistle as unreliable or an outright forgery (for some examples, see the introduction to 2 Peter in the full edition of The New Jerusalem Bible, 1985, and [3]). In short, no one has any way of determining whether the epistles of Peter come from fraud, an unknown author also named Peter (a common name) or from someone trying to further the aims of the Church. Of the remaining books and letters in the Bible, there occurs no other stretched claims or eyewitness accounts for a historical Jesus and needs no mention of them here for this deliberation. As for the existence of original New Testament documents, none exist. No book of the New Testament survives in the original autograph copy. What we have then come from copies, and copies of copies, of questionalbe originals (if the stories came piecemeal over time, as it appears it has, then there may never have existed an original). The earliest copies we have came more than a century later than the autographs, and these exist on fragments of papyrus. [Pritchard; Graham] According to Hugh Schonfield, "It would be impossible to find any manuscript of the New Testament older than the late third century, and we actually have copies from the fourth and fifth. [schonfield] --by Jim Walker (link available by request)

I'll look for it, does it offer any scholarship information? I read a review on amazon from a catholic or something that said even from their perspective it wasn't helpful, more for members of the LDS church only?

Yes I have read the King James Version cover to cover, I also have the books, the case for Christ by Lee Strobel, and the Jesus Puzzle...(still working on the latter two) Dec

I am sorry Pam, but my point is that you do not "know", you have faith. Your comments are silly and unintelligible in the context as an answer to the historical and biblical questions that I presented. Billions of people of other faiths have faith and experience to back their feelings also, I would think they would ask you the same "whats the point question" to your testimony? Dec

This is not an answer, how could all the jews be wrong, or the hindus? This is not a valid argument, a very typical "argumentum ad populum". Very Silly, and very non-persuasive to anyone with more than a room temperature IQ. That is a nice story, it has nothing to do with proof of anything, so a child calmed down...nice. I should point out, this is not Knowledge, it is very inaccurate for you to point out from this story "how do I know", this is a "why I have faith" type of story, which is very different. I think it is intellectually dishonest for one to claim knowledge of any type from this type of subjective, vague, and non-distinct experience. I want to add, that I posted an article concerning very pointed historical issues about Christ, I agree with Pam this should be civil,but how about we keep it on point.... Dec

Hello, Please list the fallacies, and errors when you get time, I am definitely interested! Dec

Pam, I addressed this in the begging of this post, and on the last post I started. In short, I do not believe or Disbelieve in Christ at the moment, I am evaluating the evidence for such belief, and so far it is coming up very short for Christ. Do you believe or disbelieve in Zeus? Mithra? Vishnu? Why? I think they seem at the moment equally valid questions... Dec

I am not asking about science, I am asking about history...