Election Day Religious Frag Fest

Flint Dille I guess I just don't buy the idea that corporations are innately evil. They make products I purchase.
Yesterday at 9:57am ·

Scott P. Schomer Ha! Even lefties, I love it.
Yesterday at 10:05am ·

Janet Batchler No, corporations are not innately evil. (Heck, I'm a corporation!) But do you want to vote to make one particular corporation a monopoly and block all paths to any competition against it, and moreover to enshrine that in the state constitution? That's what Prop 16 does, and all their "right to vote" propaganda is pure bullshit.
Yesterday at 10:05am ·

Buzz Dixon @Janet -- >you< are not a corporation, you own a corporation
@Flint -- corporations are not evil but rather amoral. They are interested only in profit and take careful steps to isolate their owners & employees from the consequences of their actions. They justify all their actions by how much money they return to their owners. It's the love of ...
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Yesterday at 10:27am ·

Craig Miller No one is saying corporations are evil. But these two propositions are. The promotion of them is misleading. False, even. And they are specifically to the detriment of the public. If PG&E wants to compete, be competitive; don't try to outlaw the existence of competition. Mercury is claiming 17 reduces rates when it actually does the opposite. Corporations aren't evil. Lying for profit is.
Yesterday at 10:28am ·

Flint Dille I think there are lots of other roots of evil than money. C'mon. Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, AVARICE, Gluttony and Lust. Avarice doens't even make the top half of the list.
Yesterday at 10:29am ·

Craig Miller So one evil is okay because there are others? "Don't punish him. He only murdered one guy. That guy over there killed six."
Yesterday at 10:30am ·

Flint Dille Is that the 'Reductio Ad Absurdum" that was so heavily discussed the other day. Obviously, I was responding to the rather threadbare old chestnut 'money is the root of all evil.'

New Rhet idea. Just because something is a cliche, doesn't make it true.
Yesterday at 10:32am ·

Janet Batchler It is an old chestnut. Almost 2000 years old. "The love of money is the root of all evil." -- I Tim 6:10
Yesterday at 10:37am ·

Flint Dille My NIV says: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

The 'kinds of' makes it a statement I can believe in. The same way, "I kind of forgot myself' makes me believe Dirty Harry, because I really don't forget that Harry Callighan forgets how many bullets he fires.
Yesterday at 10:39am ·

Craig Miller No, Flint. Your comment was the Reducto ad Absurdum. What difference does it make if Buzz quoted the Bible? He was making a point. You ignored his point to chide his use of a cliche. His point still holds. And just because a corporation loves money, doesn't mean the public should bend over for them.
Yesterday at 10:40am ·

Buzz Dixon @Flint -- Money buys you access to the other 7 deadly sins. And you're a deacon, you should know better: St. Paul didn't write "Money is the root of all evil" but "The >love< of money is the root of all evil."

And don't get me started on the original meanings of stereotype and cliche' (printing terms). Cliches can't become cliches unless there is some truth to them, the problem is when people use cliches instead of thinking.
Yesterday at 10:41am ·

Flint Dille See above. Buzz misquoted the bible -- or at least a sensible interpretation of the bible, because, even on first blush, there's plenty of evil in it that has nothing to do with money - starting with Eve and the apple which, given there was no economy at the time, probably wasn't a monetary issue.

Also, nice reductio ad absurdum at the end. I never said we should bend over for them.
Yesterday at 10:42am ·

Buzz Dixon @Flint -- #1 I did not misquote the Bible. You're talking to a 7-yr veteran of So. Bapt. Vacation Bible Schools -- careful who you're slappin' Bible leather with, podnuh!

#2 The real root of evil is the love of self over the love of God and others (which is why Christ quoted Rabbi Hillel and said the 2 greatest commandments were to love God and...
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Yesterday at 10:47am ·

Flint Dille Slap with Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_of_all_evil
Yesterday at 10:53am ·

Michael Kenney I just wish I had enough money to send my daughter to college this fall, pay my bills each month and pay off these annoying credit card bills.
Yesterday at 10:54am ·

Buzz Dixon @Flint -- I thot quoting Wikipedia as an authoritative source was one of the signs one had lost an argument. ;)
Yesterday at 11:00am ·

Buzz Dixon @Flint -- Seriously, Christ was pretty down on human beings accumulativing wealth. Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter heaven, sell all you have and give it to the poor, the lilies of the fields, what profits a man to gain the world only to lose his soul, you cannot serve both God and Mamon [money], etc., etc., and of course, etc.
Yesterday at 11:03am ·

Flint Dille Buzz: Give it up. Its okay. Obviously, nobody in the bible thinks money is the root of all evil. Its just a misquote. Every translation throws in some version of 'all kinds' of evil. Cutting out the 'all kinds' dramatically changes the meaning. Everybody can agree with it. Let's move on.

New International Version (©1984)
For the love of ...
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Yesterday at 11:14am ·

Michael Chase Walker You cannot misquote or even quote a mythological personage. There is zero empirical evidence that "Christ" existed and zero historical evidence that the legendary "Jesus" of Nazareth" existed. Thus, Hitchens' maxim applies, "that which can be introduced without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Yesterday at 11:16am ·

Buzz Dixon @MCW -- The historical reality of the existence of Jesus is undisputed. The Epistles were written within a few years to a few decades after the crucifixion; since they repeatedly refer to Christ's death and resurrection and were for people who lived in the part of the world where those events occured, it would have been pretty easy to prove Jesus ...
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Yesterday at 11:27am ·

Michael Kenney Is this a good time to quote Douglas Adams?
Yesterday at 11:29am ·

Buzz Dixon @Flint -- What were you saying the other day about deliberately misquoting an opponent in a debate? Check my posts, I keep quoting the verse accurately. The New Testament, Christ in particular, sees wealth as an obstruction to a virtuous life and salvation.
Yesterday at 11:29am ·

Flint Dille Buzz... What did I misquote? Here's your quote:

"It's the love of money that is the root of all evil & once a corporation loses its founders, either thru purchase or death/retirement, then it tends to lose sight of any vision other than the acquisition of wealth"

I'm confused.
Yesterday at 12:21pm ·

Flint Dille Michael, I do have to go with Buzz on this. If judged by the standards of all other ancient scholarship, the existence of Jesus Christ is as well documented as virtually anything in antiquity. And far better documented than almost any history based on anything but the extreme upper and military classes. Heard a fascinating lecture by a my ...
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Yesterday at 12:25pm ·

G.D. Strauff I love all you guys so I'mma just watch, m k'ay?
Yesterday at 12:41pm ·

Sharon LaBorde Personally, I follow a fortune cookie fortune I got once:
"Money is the root of evil and man needs roots."
Yesterday at 12:44pm ·

Michael Chase Walker You're both referring to "pseudo-history" and what anthropologists term appropriately "pseudo-historic metamorphosis" the piling on of past mythological figures to impose and foster validity and timelessness to a more favorable and trendy up-to-date figure. The Christ/Jesus god/ man incarnate motif is as old as mankind and predates Christianity by...
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Yesterday at 1:07pm ·

Flint Dille No, this was a real ancient history professor at a real university going over the historical evidence of Christ based on the same rules he would use for, say Alexander the Great. No pseudo. He did not get into any mystical or theological issues. It was all real history all the time.
Yesterday at 1:26pm ·

Flint Dille Beyond that, we're in the area of BELIEF, the most inarguable and irreconcilable of the four types of arguments. Extremely argumentative, impossible to argue. Nobody can prove to you that God exists and you are in the even more impossible position of proving a negative.
Yesterday at 1:27pm ·

Michael Chase Walker No, you have it all backwards, my friend, you do not have to prove a negative, ergo "that which can be introduced without evidence i.e. god, can be dismissed accordingly. There's nothing more to say. The onus is on you to provide the evidence when you are positing the impossible.
Yesterday at 2:11pm ·

Flint Dille You have to prove something doesn't exist. I say it does. That's proving a negative. As long as your audience is Mr. Hitchens, you don't have to prove anything. He already agrees.

If your audience is anyone else, proof is what you and they agree is proof.

Now, we have a definitional debate. The 2nd most argumentative, yet inarguable kind of...
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Yesterday at 2:15pm ·

Flint Dille Or put another way, I can't prove it to you and I don't need to prove it to myself.
Yesterday at 2:16pm ·

Michael Chase Walker This is no longer a debate but mere semantics and something more akin to the childish, I know you are but what am I? As for your "history" professor you both might enjoy the antics of the crank physicist Dr. Parker, Ph.D who has opened his own "scientific" museum" dedicated to creationism... where dinosaurs roam the Garden of Eden with their fellow man.... As for Alexander's actual existence, I'll put my money on him above Jesus anytime.
Yesterday at 2:27pm ·

Buzz Dixon @MCW -- I understand your extreme reluctance to accept anything in the Bible as historically/archeologically verifiable (such as the existence of Jesus); it's much more comforting to be able to dismiss the entire thing than face the consequences of it being true.

Kinda like a 3 yr old hoping the bad doggie will go away if he closes his eyes...

...
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Yesterday at 2:52pm ·

Michael Chase Walker Thank you for the invitation, Buzz, but I take your likening me to a three year old as both asinine and condescending, perhaps much like your inane vanity blog. Who really gives a shit why you choose to be a moron? Robert Oxton Bolt once described belief as not an idea the mind possesses but an idea that possesses the mind. It's not a great ...
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11 hours ago ·

Buzz Dixon @MCW -- And you think I haven't? You think Christians who are serious about their faith have never gone through periods of doubt, disbelief, introspection, and have not looked into the moral, philosophical, and theological teachings of others?

Faith and belief are not rooted on imaginary, unprovable things; quite the contrary, faith and belief ...
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11 hours ago ·

Sherri Stoner wow. what a thread!
11 hours ago ·

Michael Chase Walker I don't even know how to answer such a hugger-mugger of convoluted and contradictory rationale, but it does explain your penchant for the absurd. From your own hagiography it appears all you've done is returned to the religion of your up bringing. How sad. I will encourage you thusly, do not longer long in your mediocre wool-gathering, Buzz, keep going, I know you will break free. I have faith!
11 hours ago ·

Sherri Stoner oh michael you had to go and spoil a lovely argument by calling buzz a moron. he's obviously not. and neither are you. but now you've ruined the debate.
11 hours ago ·

Buzz Dixon @Sherri -- Nonsense, the debate isn't ruined until one of us calls the other a Nazi and the other responds by asking "Exactly how tiny >is< your penis?"
10 hours ago ·

Michael Chase Walker Sorry, if I seem too judgmental, I know how brilliant Buzz is, but after he inferred I was a 3 year old I felt I had the liberty to call a spade a spade. I did call him brilliant, too! See? Besides, I don't mind being judgmental, as I am not a christian we have no commandment to inhibit us...lol
10 hours ago ·

Sherri Stoner Alright. Resume. You fatty retards.
10 hours ago ·

Mary Pendergast Flint's a deacon?!
9 hours ago ·

Flint Dille Not anymore. I was a pretty inept Deacon. Taught a Bethel Class for 10 years, though.
8 hours ago ·

Kevin Maurice Interesting discussion.
@Michael - I think you will find the video "Symbols of an Alien Sky" fascinating. It reveals much about the symbols you reference. Info regarding it here: http://www.thunderbolts.info/resources.htm#SYMBOLS
8 hours ago ·

Buzz Dixon @Flint -- The Presbyterian church doesn't let go >that< easily, Flint! once a deacon/elder, always a deacon/elder; you're just not on active duty right now.
8 hours ago ·

Michael Chase Walker @kevin, yes man, you understand. With all the information available today, to condescend to "mere christianity" is an affront to the contemporary zeitgeist; an unforgivable acquiescence to a tired old paradigm that swallows up intellectuals as sure as any black hole. Buzz, with all his intellectual pedigree betrays what is possible, by ...
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8 hours ago ·

Christopher Kent Just wanted to take a moment to applaud Buzz.
8 hours ago ·

Sheryl Scarborough @Sherri = ditto!
6 hours ago