Romy

You look scared :blink: ... I want these indexed too please :) : [hide] [/hide] Thanks. :wink:

I think it was iron :ohnoes: :ohnoes: .

The government or the people? [hide=The government will react in the same way as you will when you see this, epilepsy beware][/hide] The people will probably have fun. I can't see the picture :/....

The story lacks a supernatural factor, or something that has to do with leaving the 2 women alone. You know, if he got back and saw his wife with cuts and bruises similar to the other woman's... Wow, I didn't know my mind was capable of thinking about these things O.O... I actually quite like it the way it is, though I don't find it creepy at all. It's more of an inspirational (kind of) story to me, not really scary. Making it scary is the whole point though...

That may be correct for no specific deity, I was discussing a (any) specific one.

That scenario would necessarily mean there isn't proof of the sun, and if there isn't proof, I probably wouldn't believe there's a sun either.

Except those that do, base it on personal experience. You can't prove anything by basing it on personal experience. What about the sun? Someone whos lived underground their whole life (let's not argue the possibilities of that) If they've never seen the sun... is that not similar? No, because technically, I could eventually show him the sun.

Except those that do, base it on personal experience. You can't prove anything by basing it on personal experience.

No. You need evidence for existence not for non-existence. Why the hell would you need evidence for something not to exist. Having no evidence that something exist is evidence that it does not exist. It doesn't always work that way. If you're arguing for non existence of a pre existing concept, then yes you would need evidence. Are you saying I don't need to put evidence showing the sun doesn't exist? A bit more physical than spiritual sure, but an assertion of opinion nonetheless. But we have evidence that the sun does exist.... oh and we can actually see it. Exactly what I was going to say :S...

Yeah, which I hope won't happen.

No. You need evidence for existence not for non-existence. Why the hell would you need evidence for something not to exist. Having no evidence that something exist is evidence that it does not exist. It doesn't always work that way. If you're arguing for non existence of a pre existing concept, then yes you would need evidence. Are you saying I don't need to put evidence showing the sun doesn't exist? A bit more physical than spiritual sure, but an assertion of opinion nonetheless. No, you may need explanation and reasoning, but not proving.

I heard about the Google-China affairs, and about Google trying to dismiss the Chinese government's censor, and I even heard of an ultimatum Google presented, but I didn't think that will be the result: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/22/google.china/index.html?hpt=C1 [hide]Google on Monday announced it has stopped censoring search results in China. The announcement came amid speculation that the search giant would pull out of China entirely and sets up a showdown with the Communist leadership there. In a 3:03 p.m. ET post on its official blog, Google said it stopped running the censored Google.cn service on Monday and was routing its Chinese users to an uncensored version of Google based in Hong Kong. "We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement," said Senior Vice President David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, on the blog. Google hopes the move "will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China," Drummond wrote. "We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services," he added. Google said it would be carefully monitoring to see if access to the site is blocked in mainland China. Early reports from China on Monday suggested that the Chinese government was already restricting access to Google's Hong Kong-based site, said Eddan Katz, International Affairs Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We've already heard indications that visitors to Google.hk are getting 'can't find page' errors," he said. The company on Monday also launched a dashboard page, which it promises to update regularly each day, that will show which Google services are available in China. According to the page, YouTube, Google Sites and Google's Blogger apps were blocked Monday afternoon. Observers said Google's actions amounts to a de facto withdrawal from China by putting the ball in the court of a Chinese regime that virtually everyone expects will begin censoring search results on the site. Ron Diebert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which studies the intersection of digital policy and human rights, said Google's move didn't come as a surprise. "It's become unsustainable for Google to operate in this environment," he said. "They've made a decision that the risks are too great for them, so they're going to pull out." Google launched Google.cn, its China effort, in 2006 amid complaints that its devotion to Web freedom was being subverted by a willingness to comply with Chinese censorship in return for access to a huge potential customer base. The company, whose slogan is "don't be evil," countered that by operating in limited form, it gave Chinese users more information than than they would have had otherwise. Google also hoped its presence would speed a move toward online freedom in China. In January, Google announced that the company and at least 20 others were victims of a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" originating in China in mid-December, evidently to gain access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The company said the attacker or attackers gained access to the header -- or subject-line information -- from the e-mails of two human rights activists through the Google network. As a result, the company said, it was no longer willing to abide by the filters that the Chinese government demanded on certain searches before allowing Google to operate in the country. For a brief time afterward, Google.cn was retrieving results for sensitive topics including the 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square, the Dalai Lama and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement. But about a day later, search results appeared to return to normal. Advocates of Internet freedoms cheered Google's move Monday. "It demonstrates that a company like Google, with the business stakes in a market as large as China, can make the decision that free and open Internet is a better business alternative and a better ethical choice for its users," said Katz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which promotes free speech online. Internet users naturally gravitate toward sites that offer unrestricted access to information, he said. "This is an example of how the genie can't be put back in the bottle." Diebert, who co-founded the OpenNet Initiative, said China's next move may not be to just block access to Google but to go a step further: blocking all outside search engines from accessing Web information in China. "If such a radical measure happens, that would have major implications for cyberspace as a whole," he said. "It would point to a more regionalized Internet" and perhaps embolden countries like Iran to follow suit, Diebert said. Google.cn is the preferred search tool for about 13 percent of Chinese Web users, according to a state-sponsored survey. Baidu.com, a government-friendly Chinese search engine, dominates the market in mainland China with about 77 percent of users, the survey said. Google's announcement had been widely anticipated. Internet companies operating in China face a March 31 deadline to renew licenses to operate in the country, according to the Beijing Communications Administration. The blog post by Drummond said Google plans to continue research and development work in China and to maintain a limited sales presence there. In an apparent attempt to deflect blame for the decision from Google employees still living in China, the post specified that the decision was made by Google's top brass in the United States. "Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, [Google's China employees] have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers," the blog said. "We are immensely proud of them."[/hide]

I like my men like I like my cars, easily driven to where ever the hell I want! Roaches.

Not really, if you said that on a completely unrelated topic, I doubt anyone would disagree with you.

Names do matter. By calling it civil union, you're not helping homosexual acceptance into society. Should have mentioned something about it then. Personally I think that should be the legal term for any marriage, regardless of sexuality. Always thought marriage was just the ceremony, married for the state of being married, and so on. ...I should probably quit while I'm ahead :mrgreen: . As long as it ends up equal I'm satisfied. Perhaps that's what you think, and frankly what I think aswell, but I know of quite a few straights, and quite a few gays, who'd want to marry. It makes no sense that only one group owns that right.

You wouldn't know how much names matter. The minute a black man has a "daily-work" and a white man has a "job", the black man is a second-class citizen like others have said here. It's as if he is not deserving of a better definition. If I were a lesbian, I'd want to marry, not union.

But if it's an atheist stating that there is no god do theists still have to provide proof that there is? Or is it the atheist's job to prove that no god(s) can exist? The way I see it, theists provided the "story". Atheists just doubt that story, so I don't think it's their job to disprove it. That leads to an interesting double standard if only one side is required to actually prove its side. If I were to say that I do believe in a God would I just be doubting the atheist's 'story'? I would be rejecting the notion that a god doesn't exist. I'm kind of repeating myself here, but if I presented Mr.Green as the one true God, it would be my job to prove that's the truth, and not yours to disprove it. The story I'm presenting is "Mr.Green is our God", you, on the other hand, not presenting a story by saying "Not true until proven otherwise".

But if it's an atheist stating that there is no god do theists still have to provide proof that there is? Or is it the atheist's job to prove that no god(s) can exist? The way I see it, theists provided the "story". Atheists just doubt that story, so I don't think it's their job to disprove it. That's not saying that they shouldn't point things out, or explain themselves, etc. that's saying that since there either is a God, or there isn't, and neither statement can be proven, the logical thing to do is not follow God (that's my opinion, to avoid any misunderstandings), just as you wouldn't believe in the monster under the bed despite the lack of evidence of it's inexistence. Through experience of faith one could feel that is all the evidence they need to follow a god. But that is what is required, faith. And faith cannot be simply pieced together in a formula of some sort, it is a developed and involuntary result of a human being. Therefore atheists do not experience the evidence theists have, and so it would be more logical if they were agnostic as they do not have definitive 'no' information. So because you, or any other theist, claims to have felt such experiences, I should be agnostic towards said experiences? You may be surprised, but people from different (or even very different) religions claim to have had those experiences. That automatically means that basing any specific religion on these experiences is pointless. What does Christianity has to offer that Islam does not? What does Islam has to offer that Buddhism does not? etc... Can you disprove any of our theistic experiences that we have claimed to be testimony? Ofcourse not, these are personal experiences. Asking that is as rediculous as asking you to prove any of your experiences.

Democracy, by it's definition, combined with the logic behind same-sex marriage, should offer equal rights in that matter. Really? And if a white man's job was legally named "job", and a black person's job could not be called that, say it would be called, I don't know, daily-work, and both offered the exact same things, do you think there's nothing wrong with that? That it's okay not to allow blacks have jobs, only daily-works?

But if it's an atheist stating that there is no god do theists still have to provide proof that there is? Or is it the atheist's job to prove that no god(s) can exist? The way I see it, theists provided the "story". Atheists just doubt that story, so I don't think it's their job to disprove it. That's not saying that they shouldn't point things out, or explain themselves, etc. that's saying that since there either is a God, or there isn't, and neither statement can be proven, the logical thing to do is not follow God (that's my opinion, to avoid any misunderstandings), just as you wouldn't believe in the monster under the bed despite the lack of evidence of it's inexistence. Through experience of faith one could feel that is all the evidence they need to follow a god. But that is what is required, faith. And faith cannot be simply pieced together in a formula of some sort, it is a developed and involuntary result of a human being. Therefore atheists do not experience the evidence theists have, and so it would be more logical if they were agnostic as they do not have definitive 'no' information. So because you, or any other theist, claims to have felt such experiences, I should be agnostic towards said experiences? You may be surprised, but people from different (or even very different) religions claim to have had those experiences. That automatically means that basing any specific religion on these experiences is pointless. What does Christianity has to offer that Islam does not? What does Islam has to offer that Buddhism does not? etc...

That's kind of what I said. I said have the government give civil unions unbiasedly with the same benefits to any couples, then the churches and religious communities could dispense marriages. I don't know why someone disagreed, probably because it satisfies all parties >.> hahaha No it doesn't. I'd want to marry even if I was a lesbian, I wouldn't want any civil unions, even if I got the same benefits. The church shouldn't dictate the term marriage. The church did not invent it, the church is not the only one to offer that, the church is not the one that should have monopoly over it. If any pastor doesn't want to marry a couple for any reason, it's his right, but state and religion should be seperated, and that includes legal marriages. Then it just becomes a brawl from rights over a nominal term, and that is just pathetic and is on the verge of being a child who wants more more more more. Fine, call it a legal marriage as well. It makes no difference to me if a Church retains the right to dictate the terms of its own marriage. I would scoff at the vanity of any gay who would complain over an equal civil union just because they don't like the term, as it would be purely distinctive. Call it whatever you want. I just find it absurd that legal marriages are not something that exists on every democratic country.

But if it's an atheist stating that there is no god do theists still have to provide proof that there is? Or is it the atheist's job to prove that no god(s) can exist? The way I see it, theists provided the "story". Atheists just doubt that story, so I don't think it's their job to disprove it. That's not saying that they shouldn't point things out, or explain themselves, etc. that's saying that since there either is a God, or there isn't, and neither statement can be proven, the logical thing to do is not follow God (that's my opinion, to avoid any misunderstandings), just as you wouldn't believe in the monster under the bed despite the lack of evidence of it's inexistence.

That's kind of what I said. I said have the government give civil unions unbiasedly with the same benefits to any couples, then the churches and religious communities could dispense marriages. I don't know why someone disagreed, probably because it satisfies all parties >.> hahaha No it doesn't. I'd want to marry even if I was a lesbian, I wouldn't want any civil unions, even if I got the same benefits. The church shouldn't dictate the term marriage. The church did not invent it, the church is not the only one to offer that, the church is not the one that should have monopoly over it. If any pastor doesn't want to marry a couple for any reason, it's his right, but state and religion should be seperated, and that includes legal marriages.

I gave that answer as an aletnative to Nick's question... You said it could be that God, supposedly, punishes the kids for the parents' doings, it could be war and disease, and it could be that God doesn't exist...

Yeah, either that or... Perhaps God simply does not exist?