X. Benedict

Collectively as a species perhaps, but nobody lives the collective life of the entire species. In particular your average guys engineering ancient aqueducts with an abacus and without Arabic numerals are probably no smarter, nor more or less religious than your average engineer today. People don't know more than the ancients, nor are they smarter.......they just know different things.

But no more insane in the 21st Century than the 2nd.

Real is the wrong word. Where your Youtube apostle get it wrong is in the premise...... religious truths ultimately have little to do with causation and everything to do with meaning. Saying the ancients used scripture as scientific text is nonsense...this was mostly a 16th century complication. Really the religious life of the West ( including the Greek East) had very little interest in causation, and were quite comfortable understanding scripture as analogy, metaphor and narrative. Virtues such as humility were emphasized much more than causation. What does empiricism have to teach me about humility? Empiricism can teach us a great deal about causation, and knowledge of particulars...but very little about meaning and the properties of "being" ..... such as the moral life, the good life, beauty, love, justice, etc. ....these aren't necessarily religious pursuits in and of themselves....but religion does attempt some answers independent of, and often co-dependent on, competing epistemologies. ......burp......

Just too hard to negate........ Cocknotsosure is just too awkward.

Depends on the Atlantic water level.

Religion is non-malleable? That's just a weird statement. If everybody practiced Christianity the same way 2nd century Greeks like Origen and Irenaeus did, and if Reformed Judaism never got a foothold I would think you had a point. Religion is always changing.

Transcript ...... can't say I found any of this offensive. I have never liked First Ladies giving policy speeches however...but this reads pretty tame to me. http://www.scribd.com/doc/20015066/Michell...TranscriptVideo Anybody fact check it?

I'm pretty sure he said "Jesus, make my hands sticky"

Yes. But can you go from Tuna Noodle Casserole to Idi Amin in 5?

Okay, Mr. Poopy-pants.

I agree...."cave in" suggests a reversal.

Lost in this debate is how hard it is to actually set up an Salvadorean Hooker Ring without local knowledge.

I don't know...... quantitatively I'm still wondering if an "overwhelming portion of animosity" is over 75% of those that actually have an hatred they would act on..... pretty innocuous stuff if you ask me...... Maybe they can get back to interviewing ex-Vice President Cheney more......he's just as crazy and twice as entertaining.

How can they lead on a reserve currency when they don't float their own? They can bark and spit about it.....but it ain't happening soon IMO.

leave it to me to spell that right, and misspell "basis" Doesn't the Vegas rule apply to Alaska.......?

I was just wondering if it was that quote that was the bases of your hermeneutic..... Anyway...you brought it up.

so you took this: "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American," Carter said. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shared the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans" Continued Carter, who is famously from Georgia: "And that racism inclination still exists. And I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply." and interpreted it to mean this?:

Honorable discharge and held elected office. That seems to meet the requirement.

Dear Walmart, It has come to my attention that you no longer advertise on the Glen Beck show do to charges that he is a race-baiter. Do not cave to the demands of your racially oversensitive customers, and please continue to support Glenny or I will buy my Chinese stuff somewhere else. Love, Augustus P. Riechhammer PS. Corporately sponsored political diatribe is what 'Merica is all about.

I'd love to see what a counter-boycott letter looks like. Post it if you see a good one.

most of it is this thing I bet.... http://www.flickr.com/photos/dangler/3635258143/

Say stupid inflammatory things to boost ratings..... boosted ratings lure advertisers.....advertisers make the network money. Blah, blah, blah........ I'll take Fox (or other cable networks ) seriously when they put a permanent reporter in Afghanistan. Money turns this drivel out while people argue Conservative or Liberal.

By definition.

Ralph Wilson 10,000

Procedural....nothing more. The indictment has to be read...pleas entered....then defense and DA talk ....this isn't going to trial.