panpareil

A guy just did in a New Jersey mall last night. I hope it catches on. Go in to a public place. Shoot in the air. Kill yourself. Nobody got hurt, and he still gets all the publicity.

I can confidently say that dogs go exactly to the same place we go when we die.

According to Bart Ehrman, scholars agree that there are more proven errors than there are words in the bible. If this is true, and ReverendV's post above is example of just one phrase, then it is untenable that a literal understanding of the Bible can ever be possible with the currently available texts.

Worrying about dead ancestors started long before Christianity, and probably before heaven or hell were conceived. Even now many people live with their dead relatives in their home. People will consult an urn of ashes, a favorite chair, or a picture just as they did their relative in life. Remains kept in the home are either propitiated with wishes of peace, or there is a desire to restrain them from interfering with the living. The concept of deity itself seems to be an amalgam of this natural relationship with the dead, awe and respect for nature, and our propensity to anthropomorphize.

If your hate overcomes you, call an ambulance. If you believe all human beings should be forced to follow the dictates of your religion, call an ambulance. If you think all human beings should be forced to follow the dictates of the state, call an ambulance. If you fear the civil or criminal court system, call an ambulance. If you are overcome with compassion for someone who has desperately and irrationally turned to a self destructive act, call an ambulance. Otherwise, if someone has chosen to include you in a rational act of self termination, accept the privilege and responsibility in supportive silence.

There are requirements for the Heretic label. One is Baptism. Those unbaptized can only be Apostate.

That would still make this the first and original ULC site. The URL is not the site, and is presently possessed per parasitic poseur pretender. (Sorry, I got carried away with the alliteration.)

I came across a video of Rupert Sheldrake putting forward the notion that science is now a belief system that inhibits the free rational inquiry that it was once based upon. Dr Sheldrake lists 10 fallacious assumptions that bar science from progressing. Nature is mechanical or machine like All matter is unconscious The laws or constants of nature are fixed The total amount of matter and energy is always the same Nature is purposeless Biological heredity is material Memories are stored inside your brain Your mind is inside your head Psychic phenomena like telepathy is not possible Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that worksTo my point of view we stand in a similar position to that we once stood in the 19th century when scientists thought they had discovered all the rules of science. That is until they faced the inadequacy of classical physics in explaining black body radiation without breaking or bending their rigid rules.

A denomination can be a subgroup of religion as a whole, not just a subgroup of an existing religion. The ULC is on the order of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, not Lutheran, Shiite, or Zen. Christianity as a whole is also a religious denomination, or a named group. In fact, the ULC may be considered in an order above other religions or philosophies, as they may all be members of the ULC, but no other religion or philosophy contain all members of the ULC. The genius of Hensley was not to create another subgroup or to blend existing groups together into a new group, but to create a super-group above all other groups which contains all other groups.

A denomination is just a named thing or group of things. If you care too bet, the denomination I would prefer to be paid off in is Benjamins.

A denomination is a named group in this case religious. So, the ULC qualifies as a denomination. It is also a meta-religion and a super-religion, probably the only functioning one because of its simple agreeable premise.

Just another attempt to keep others from joining an exclusive club. Elitist bureaucratic snobs.

I see no difference in the need for an all good god and the need for an all good life, or an all good world. Nor do I understand it.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Ownership is just an impersonal abstraction to obscure the fact that you are referring to everyone's personal stuff. The involuntary elimination of personal property would require violence or at least the threat of violence, much the same as in rape. And just as in rape, the sociopathic perpetrator would blame the violence involved on the victim putting up a fight, or on the situation that made them a target - "They were asking for it", by having stuff that I want.

The same is true of giving them someone else's fish. Try giving them all your own first.

For most, their religious or philosophical perspective is an integral and visible aspect of their personality. It is a part of who they are and a functional part of how they interface with other human beings. To seek an absence in this expression in others is to seek an absence of their freedom to be who they are. It is comparable to saying "I do not mind the gays as long as they do not express their sexuality, because I have a right to be free from homosexuality." The only "freedom from" that anyone has is the freedom from others infringing on their "freedom to". Of course the limit is one "freedom to" conflicting with another "freedom to". This is why law is necessary as well as government. If everyone were evolved enough to peacefully resolve conflict there would be no need for government at all.

I do not support restrictions on clothing or appearance. However, there can be liability for effects caused by clothing. Studded clothing can cause punctures and lacerations. Appearance will also limit or enhance the goodwill others will feel and express. But, the physiognomy of people themselves is often more disturbing than anything they might wear. Maybe we should require ugly people to wear veils to protect those with a refined sense of aesthetics.

Rights that exist because they are given can be just as easily taken away, and are really only temporary privileges. This means for the common man there is no difference in their status under the rule of a king, a committee, a pope, or a mob. Which is why the US was not founded on these flawed and inequitable premises. The assumption in the founding of this nation is that rights cannot be granted by men, which means if rights are to exist they must exist intrinsically. In essence we our each our only ruler. Elected officials are our emissaries, functionaries, and servants, not our rulers. It is within our power to disband the government entirely, just as it was created in the first place.

Secular is without religion. If religion is being injected to a secular activity then keeping it secular will appear to be anti-religious due to resistance to the encroachment of religion.

An exaggeration for expressive effect. But focusing on the aesthetics of expression does not deal with the point, to wit, feeding animals endangers them. The same applies to people. It is a manipulation that make them less able to feed themselves, dependent on their keepers for survival, and being less fearful of their keepers they are more likely to attack them, and destroy their property. The manipulation is already underway and has been for my entire life. My desire is not to initiate it but to end it. Funny how that is twisted around. Survive under what conditions is the question. If natural pressure is artificially removed then the perception of survivability is skewed. When natural pressure returns, and it will, die off will be devastating. Just picture pets dislocated after a natural disaster, starving because no one comes to feed them. Most domesticated animals are not able to go feral and will just starve instead. Hunting skills are learned and must be honed before they are effective. Instinct is not always enough. Domesticated animals are deprived of these skills and knowledge. And social programs are the means to domesticate human beings. To control their actions and environment, limit their movement, and make them more docile, all for the purpose of extracting a desired resource from them with as few complications as possible. I'm not suggesting limiting genetic diversity, I'm proposing limiting the behavioral modification by the state, for the sake of the survival of our species. People need to earn what they need to survive, by fulfilling the desires and needs of others. There is nothing more egalitarian or altruistic than the free market.

There is no loss of property. All property is God's, including all people. He has simply broken his own things. It is his own right. If anyone does not like the situation, they can simply not exist. We do have free will, after all.

Liberty above all. Freedom from religion is the absence of freedom of religion. When a religion claims a single pipeline to God, in the hands of a few, to the exclusion of all others, it aspires to theocracy, and theocracy is totalitarian. God, if existent, is accessible to all right now. There is no heresy. Even if you are in a world where everyone does everything you disagree with and is disrespectful of everything you cherish, as long as you are freed to do as you wish with and on your own property, and as long as you can say whatever you want anywhere, and as long as you can always have on your person any weapon necessary to defend yourself, you are free. Controlling society diminishes freedom, and prosperity. Safety is not in the constitution. Neither is success. Equality is the absence of diversity. The template for a perfect society is right here. Let everyone do what they think is right. There is no need for centralized direction, nor is there a need for making anything huge.

I have always thought the worship of Liberty was our de facto national religion. It is something millions of Americans have always been willing to die and kill for. It seems we are now being overwhelmed with heretics to our Goddess. Tolerance is stretched thin to breaking on both sides. A new religious war is brewing. It is time to seize the New Jerusalem from the heathen invaders of this holy place. Dea Vult!

God has fewer letters and means the same thing. Jehovah on the other hand has more letters.