response 189 of 293:

Dec 15 18:23 UTC 2003

Is English your second language?

response 191 of 293:

Dec 15 19:33 UTC 2003

Way back there, bru said this:

>and down the slippery slope we go...
>
>We discriminate against immoral and illegal activities all the time.
>
>Thats why theft, murder, prostitution, drug use, rape, adn 
>child molestation are all illegal.  WE discriminate against 
>them.  Lets just make them all legal.

I really think that this fundamental misunderstanding is at the root of
much of the disagreement on this issue.  Bru assumes that we outlaw
murder and so forth because they are immoral.  IMO, this is completely
wrong.  We outlaw murder and child molestation and such because they
violate the human rights of the victim.  Protecting human rights is
pretty much the fundamental purpose of government.  

So the question becomes, whose human rights are violated by allowing gay
marriages to be recognized by law?  I think that's the real question 
that opponents of gay marriage need to answer before their arguments can
be taken seriously.  

response 193 of 293:

Dec 15 19:57 UTC 2003

That's it exactly

response 195 of 293:

Dec 15 20:26 UTC 2003

..and there's the wanna-be lesbian who mysteriously keeps getting knocked up.

response 197 of 293:

Dec 16 00:01 UTC 2003

(As I said in #165.)

Some homosexual couples reproduce/adopt even after coming out.

As for Jewish beliefs (in a nut-shell), there is no hell. There's not
much said even about an afterlife. When the Messiah comes, the dead
shall rise and we'll all figure it out.  There is a concept called
Sheol, more akin to Hades, where all the dead go. But it's not very
well defined.  Judaism is more concerned with this life.

Jews do not "recruit" (you know, unlike homosexuals (: ) but do
accept converts to the faith. (Moses himself married a non-Jew, as
did King David, Solomon and others). Converts are considered full Jews
in every sense. In fact, the line of David came from Ruth, a convert.

response 199 of 293:

Dec 16 00:32 UTC 2003

I think whether or not they do is pretty irrelevent to the argument.

response 201 of 293:

Dec 16 00:56 UTC 2003

Huh.  I think Middle Eastern monotheism and the general Judao-Christian 
moral principles which accompanied it, taken as a whole, surpass by far 
any other contribution to civilization which came out of that region.  
Or for that matter, any region.  I think it's the basis for modern 
nationalism instead of tribalism and industry replacing agriculture, 
for starters among things that I value in life.

response 203 of 293:

Dec 16 01:59 UTC 2003

Ahhh...but it is processed food!

response 205 of 293:

Dec 16 03:51 UTC 2003

There is a professional farmer that sends me e-mail here.....

response 207 of 293:

Dec 16 09:34 UTC 2003

Wow, lots of meat here.

I agree with jmsaul (#200) on almost every point except the last one.
As jep says (#201), the Middle-East provided us with cities, and at a
time when their organized religion(s) w(ere) not monotheistic Islam,
but polytheistic and usually variant from city to city.

Also, during the Dark Ages and Early Mediaeval period when the whole
of Western Europe was still persecuting witches and had descended into
feudal chaos, Muslims and Jews were making adfvances in medical and
the other sciences which seemed like witchcraft to the nearly
barbarian Christians; especially in the case of the Muslims, they are
also often our only surviving source for Greek scientific texts, which
they often studied and improved upon (lest we forget, the Greeks knew
that the Earth was round. It's the only possibly explanation for the
fact that you see the sails of a ship first when it comes over the
horizon.) The Turks, who at one time ruled almost the whole of the
Muslim world, and Palestine, allowed Jews to practice freely on
payment of a tax. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be taxed for
being X than be gassed for it (although, of course, it's not right or
fair to do either; it's the lesser of two weevils.).

Re: #206: I doubt that the internecine strife between Jews, Muslims
and Christians, or persecution by any of these religions against
"infidels", can be seen as the only, the first, or the last instances
of religious persecution. The recent rioting in Gujarat, an Indian
state where the majority religion is Hindu, is one example; further
examples could be provided by the Viking raids on Northern Europe,
taking no account of the fact that the richest pickings, which they
found in churches, were also religious relics, etc.

Furthermore, in respect of Islam, opne of its aims was to *prevent*
tribal warfare between different groups of Arabs, which, afaik, it
succeeded in for a large part of its history - and even now, Arabs
still see themselves as part of the same "nation"; many of the states
that exist now did not exist before the British Empire carved them out
of its Ottoman possessions. If you want other examples of "how the
mighty have fallen", just look at Russia after Catherine the Great,
moddern Italy, modern China, or modern Britain :-(.

response 209 of 293:

Dec 16 11:36 UTC 2003

You're welcome, but let me clarify a few other points. (:

> The Turks...  allowed Jews to practice freely on payment of a tax.

Isn't that an oxymoron?  It's true that under the rule of Suleiman the
Magnificent (who rebuilt Jerusalem) Jews fared well. But this was the
exception rather than the rule. In the 19th century, the plight of
Jews in the "Holy Land" (no such place as "Palestine" existed yet)
was so extreme that they turned to western powers for protection.
Look into the Capitulations and the short-lived Tanzimat reforms.

The reason one sees the top of sails before the ship is obvious.
They are less likely to be hidden behind waves and one usually sees
taller objects first anyhow.  It has nothing to do with the curvature
of the earth.  (:  [Archimedes triangulated the diameter of the earth
and came quite close.]

> in respect of Islam, opne of its aims was to *prevent* tribal warfare
> between different groups of Arabs, which, afaik, it succeeded....

I don't think this was an aim. Islam was spread by the sword, through
tribal warfare. Polytheists who refused forced conversion were put to the
sword (Christians and Jews were tolerated).  I'm not sure that a "Pax
Islamica" was ever achieved, but the schism between Sunni and Shiite
Muslims would lead to millions of dead.  The concept of "Arab unity"
is something like the weather. People always talk about it....

response 211 of 293:

Dec 16 18:18 UTC 2003

I'll grant that Judeo-Christian monotheism made important contributions
to morality, but that it led to nationalism and industrialization? 
That's a bit of a stretch.  

response 213 of 293:

Dec 16 18:35 UTC 2003

re resp:211 (who slipped in): It's fodder for another item, but if you 
look at the basic innovation which occurred in Dark Ages and Middle 
Ages monasteries, where the monks were constantly striving to free up 
time to exercise their devotions, the connection is there.

The striving for improvement, and exploration, that originated in 
Western Europe was not an accident.  The dominant influence in Europe 
from 4th through 18th centuries was the Roman Catholic church.  I'm not 
claiming it *wanted* the change that it catalyzed, but it'd be pretty 
blind to deny it didn't have a lot of influence.  The Catholic religion 
was *wildly* successful in a whole *lot* of ways.