mererdog

A slightly more scientific skepticism...

So I should hit you in the face with a muddy boot so that you can appreciate all the times you don't get hit in the face with a muddy boot?

Ever think that maybe being judged for wearing saggy pants is your karma for judging the people who judge others for wearing saggy pants? On a serious note, I have a right to judge. Your religious beliefs do not limit my rights.

It's the difference between judging well and judging poorly. We all judge. We may as well at least try to do it well. This includes when we judge others for the way they judge.

So you believe that God is both imperfect and limited?

No it is not. Judging is how we tell the difference between "safe" and "not safe". You judge or you die. The trick is to try to judge fairly, and to remain willing to change your judgments based on new information.

There is. There is all sorts of help available for anyone in this country who wants to get an education.

Do you think the slave-owning writers and signers of the Declaration found any irony in that line? Or do you think they were completely oblivious?

As far as teaching men to fish, it has long been established that it is fairly difficult to teach someone who is starving. So while giving a man a fish might not be a good long term solution to his hunger, it might be a necessary component of one.

Not really. Need is too closely tied to purpose, and purpose is too intangible, for that to be feasible.

By that logic, I don't see how "keeping it secular" can only appear anti-religious, and not actually be both anti-religious and anti-freedom. People often make the mistake of thinking that if they cannot get what they want without some thing, that thing is necessary. I try not to.

The existence of oppressive theocracies prove that religion is often at odds with liberty. "Freedom from religion is the absence of freedom of religion."

Consider people like myself who pay taxes but have no children. Is it fair to force me to pay for the education of other people's children? The truth is that taxation is inherently unfair. It exists to force people to pay for things they neither want nor need.

Sagging pants are only one way to deal with a painful nerve disorder like the one you describe. You could wear loose-fitting light-weight pants. You could wear a kilt. You could wear a dress. You could wear a robe. When choosing a solution to your problem, you would do well to consider the judgements of others, instead of simply saying that they have no right to judge you. This is both because the judgements of others will effect your quality of life and because the whole "we have no right to judge" thing is really just a way to judge others...

A good wife can make the major decisions while keeping you convinced that you made them...

The problem with that is that "poor" is a very vague idea leaving lots of room for disagreement over who does and does not qualify. I overheard a guy teasing his friend over the fact that she lives in a million dollar beach front home and is on food stamps. Her response was "They didn't ask me where I live or whether I pay rent." Lack of income is not the same as lack of money is not the same as need for money- but the government can't really measure need, you know?

Otherwise known as a statement that is not true; to wit, Feeding animals can be dangerous for animals and for people in the ways you mention, but it is not automatic. If it were, it would be illegal everywhere, which it is not. Feeding an animal does not make it less able to feed itself. At worst, it demotivates the animal from trying to feed itself. Often, however, feeding an animal is necessary to help it become able to feed itself. Most mothers know this part fairly well. Well, if you destroy an animals natural habitat, what else should it be dependent on? Where is a human's natural habitat, again? I have never been attacked by any of the birds that use my feeders, and the only damage they have done to my property has been accidental. None of them have ever stuck around for the winter, either. In my view, it is the desire to control our species that is the problem, not the type of control that is desired. I would agree that they are a means of doing so. They are far from the only means. The average banker is far more domesticated than the average hood rat, after all. That translates to "You should be dependent on other people." There are squirrels in the camping areas of Yosemite that do tricks to get people to feed them. Fulfilling the desires of people to earn what they need to survive has sort of stripped them of the ability to survive in the wild. They are fat and happy, though...

You know the story of the blind guys and the elephant? One guy perceives a tree, another a snake, and so on? Well, thinking it was a snake didn't stop it from being an elephant, did it? Why think that right and wrong are different than the elephant? You know, maybe the fact that perceptions about right and wrong vary merely proves that at least some of us are blind men groping at things too big for us to get a good grip on.... What do you mean by "in the natural sense"?Oh, and hi.

Well, no. You take it for granted that the Biblical account is accurate. I don't. And without that faith-based lens to look through, I see no compelling evidence that King David was anything more than a myth. So "we" know no such thing. It is, of course, possible that you simply know something that I do not. It is also completely possible, however, that you believe things that are not true and mistake that for knowledge. It would be nice if there was a way to prove conclusively which was the case, but life never seems to be that easy.

It seems to me that telling me what I must do is not a very effective way to encourage me to live free. Sometimes, living free tomorrow is only possible if you live in chains today. I see no nobility in discarding the possibility of living free tomorrow simply because you can't stand to wear chains today. "Live free or die" is not a good slogan. I prefer "Live free or keep trying to live free." Oh, and the original questions don't seem to apply to me, since I don't really have any religious beliefs. At least not of the sort that place limits on what others should and should not do....

That God chose to use David's sin as a catalyst to punish Israel is conjecture. Sorry, it just needed to be said. The answer to your question is fairly simple: I don't know.

[?] It isn't even banned most places. "allow"? That's a pretty creepy sentence you've put together there. Very 1930s eugenics sounding. More importantly, your premise is flawed. The species would not be doomed so long as a portion of the species possessed the necessary traits to survive. Anything else would, at most, simply cause a decrease in population size. And, just to be clear, none of us know what traits will be needed to survive the future, thus the survival of the species depends on the sort of genetic diversity you get when you allow people to develop traits you don't like.

By funding welfare programs with money that is extracted from individuals through threat of violence, we ensure that (in aggregate terms) those paying in will be resentful and those taking out will not really appreciate what they get. Sad but true.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20052248-10391709.html

Prove it.