DigitalShadow

I don't claim to have the right story, I'm atheist/agnostic depending on your definitions, and also people tend to exaggerate and distort events over time, especially where religion is concerned and many of the events were passed down as an oral tradition (ever play the telephone game?).

I believe many religions have common themes because because those themes are satisfying to people. Religions claim to be the solution to many of the same problems and questions so to me it is a no-brainer that many of them are similar.

This does not happen often, but I agree completely.

I didn't even get Good Friday off, the company I work for is very stingy with holidays.

I don't have children, but if I did I would encourage them to be dressed in public since the current culture frowns on nudity. I believe that introducing children to sexuality is on par with introducing children to drugs. If they are not old enough to make informed decisions, it is wrong for adults to introduce them to harmful things. I believe that introducing children to sexuality at a young age is severely psychologically damaging to the child, but I don't believe there is anything inherently sinful about sexuality or nudity itself.

What is portrayed in most movies is most certainly lust. Nudity is thrown in to movies in an attempt to attract more guys who wouldn't admit that is one of the reasons they are seeing the movie. I personally think it is stupid, but I don't believe it is an issue of morality as I am not religious and don't really think of nudity or sexuality as "sinful."

Not necessarily

I assure you, I am just as annoying IRL :)

I love math (almost as much as computers) and I am an atheist, but I really don't see the two as being related. I will say that I have noticed a slightly higher percentage of atheism among scientists and mathematicians, which I would like to attribute to the triumph of reason, but I'm sure many here would blame it on the pride of man or some such. In any case if your friends can't respect what you believe (or don't believe), I would say to find new friends.

Yes, the current system is failing, whether it fails enough to make people entirely re-evaluate how they look at almost everything though, we have yet to see. Also, there is no consensus on why the current system is failing and everyone is trying to blame it on whatever would further their own cause. My personal thoughts are that the current monetary system is holding humanity back, but most people are not really ready to accept anything else. The economy will get a bit worse until through a massive amount of band-aids and duct tape it will get propped back up and things will go back to normal because too many people have too much invested in the current way of doing things to let it all come crashing down. Frankly, I have always disliked the emphasis in society on accumulating more and more wealth and possessions far beyond what anyone would need, just for the sake of having them and having more than the next guy. Unfortunately, if this system comes crashing down, at this time, the only alternative would be anarchy. Perhaps a better society would rise from the ashes, but I wouldn't count on it so I'm hoping that doesn't happen.

Aesa, this is an example of my point about people not being ready for this on a social level regarding religion :) Edit: no offense intended here, I'm not trying to say that one viewpoint is better than the other, just trying to demonstrate the depth of the incompatibility between them.

I do think that you have some valid points, but I also don't think the world is ready for such a quantum shift, socially or technologically. On the social side, we have: -Many people in powerful positions who have a strong interest in maintaining the status quo because it is the source of their power. -Billions of people raised to naturally accept the current monetary system with "dreams" to acquire more and more wealth because that is how they are raised. Many of these people aren't even able to imagine a social without money and will violently reject anyone who suggests we do away with it (I'm sure you must have encountered some of them). -Many people will believe this somehow goes against their religion, especially LDS where it seems many believe the United States constitution was ordained by God and is the best form of government. -What about people who have spent much of their lives training for and enjoy the jobs that you claim will be obsolete (stockbrokers, bankers, advertisers, ect.)? How will they have a fulfilling life in this new society? On the technological side, we have: -Yes, theoretically the technology exists for the society that you are envisioning, but not on the scale that would be needed. Just because a certain technology exists, does not mean we have the technology to recreate and distribute it on a world scale. -Most of our technology as a society is held as trade secrets of corporations who actively seek to protect it. While I agree that this is an inefficient system and leads to re-inventing the wheel and wasting resources, you would first have to convince these corporations to "give away" this information. -Most of our population is simply not trained for the tasks that would be necessary to maintain and create the technology of this ideal society. There would be a strong need for engineers and tech savvy individuals and only a small portion of the population could currently fill those roles.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to Godwin the thread.

I am saying these things because I have found them to be accurate in my personal experience and for me it is the best explanation of the world around me. I don't know of any other way to explain seeing so many people who are absolutely sure that they are right, yet have conflicting mutually exclusive views. Obviously all of them can not be right, but all seem equally sure of themselves. My personal conclusion is that absolute truth is unknowable. Even my statements on uncertainty are subject to this same uncertainty and I don't claim to "know" them for certain.

An interesting read. I have always thought that eventually society will move beyond the monetary system as more and more tasks become automated and we no longer have a need for a workforce humanity to survive and even thrive, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon, partially because I don't think we are at that technological level yet and also partially because so many people are very invested in and attached to the current system.

If everyone hated the democrats, there wouldn't be a divide, but there also wouldn't be democrats. That means conservatives would have to find some other group to blame all the problems of the world on and partisanship will re-establish itself and we'll be right back where we started.

And politicians are accountable to their voters... either way it is a large corrupt entity with very little actual accountability. I have no problem with letting businesses fail under their own crappy business models, but I also am having a hard time caring when the government asks someone to step down. Perhaps it's just my apathy, but getting worked up over which large corrupt entity actually has control just doesn't do it for me. Corporations influence laws and politicians with lobbyists and politicians throw the management of corporations under the bus when the crap really hits the fan. Maybe it is some kind of unintentional check/balance system.

Actually I'm more worried that people in a corporations high management are accountable to virtually no one (that can't be placated by a well placed bribe or bonus) and hold the fate of millions of people in their greedy hands. Perhaps it is the corporations themselves that have way too much power?

The percentage of your posts that criticize democrats or democrat leaders far exceeds the percentage of your posts that criticize republicans or republican leaders. I don't think you are consciously trying to be anti-democrat, but to say that you have a bit of a bias is an understatement :)

I don't think I really needed a poll to tell me that the partisan divide in this country is growing, the massive amount of anti-democrat posts make that pretty clear.

You should really put that all in a quote block or link the article, because most of the way through reading it I thought you wrote it yourself. Obama Wants to Control the Banks

Perception always has the possibility of error and distortion. There is nothing anyone can truly know for certain as an absolute truth and considering something absolute truth is a fallacy in my opinion. There are a lot of things that are useful to accept as working truths because you have seen enough evidence for them and the concepts have proved to work for you, but there is no way to personally determine truth beyond error because of the nature of perception.

A huge company like Playboy could certainly afford to host this content on their own servers. In fact, I recently made a portfolio page for my wife using Silverlight hosted entirely on nearlyfreespeech.net with no connection to Microsoft servers. Yes, Microsoft hosts some Silverlight applications on their servers for free, but that is mostly for small personal sites, commercial sites pay for their own hosting and bandwidth.

Apparently the web page was lost as well.

What measures would you propose? It seems like you are saying there is a simple solution to all this and that Obama is simply not doing it, I'm curious exactly what steps you would take in his position. I know we disagree a lot, but I'm not particularly well versed in economics and genuinely curious here.