fakeitormakeit2

I respect and admire your decision to respect life. There are some skeptics who think that this child shall be a dramatic damper on your life, but that is not true. You will have the joy of producing something from your own flesh and you have created a true, dignified and invaluable life. I wish you the best of luck and I believe that everything shall fall into place with your steady resolve to do not what is easy, but what is right. And I hope all realize that love is a decision one must make, not an easy shortcut they can take out of something through means such as taking an innocent life to no fault of its own. Quite frankly I don't see why since abortion is legal why we can't euthanize the mentally handicapped and ill old people as well, its the same concept, they're an inconvenience. Perhaps we should kill the unemployed and drug abusers as well who do not help society economically or intellectually. I'm sure anyone here who has a handicapped sibling or ill grandparent would never want to see them euthanized because they love them, but that's a discussion for another topic.

I personally feel that any weapons of defense should only be reserved for the army and police. Other than guns for hunting, collecting and shooting on a range for sport, I don't think civilians should have guns. Obivously I'll be disagreed with and told its for self-defense purposes, but its for that reason as well as to why there are people who illegally possess guns. The second amendment was formulated in a time when America was mostly frontier and there wasn't really a well developed police/army force. Times change, as should laws. Off-topic: I don't understand people's obsession with exacting "justice". Exacting justice will not undone the effects of an injustice, it will not bring the dead back or anything of the short and the "eye for an eye" mindset we have really doesn't work because when people are arrested in America they don't have themselves made an example of (i.e. like a public execution because that would be "barbaric" and yet there's such a strong desire for revenge) and than they get a free room, food, exercise time, television and education. So jailing someone is not a scare tactic, it is decently nice if you have nothing as you receive a lot of free aid and you have the possibility of obtaining contacts. This horrible failure of a system is because it is a fusion of rehabilitating criminals and punishing them, so we lie to ourselves by saying they're being punished while they are pampered without any rehabilitative measures.

I don't understand why people say Communism is idealistically the best system. It's a horrible system. It's an imposed equalization of everyone. People must accept and work on equality themselves [plus most interest groups are not interested in equality, they're interested in special privileges]. If someone works harder, then they get equal compensation. True, those who make more then the average citizen should give to the less fortunate, but not by force because than virtue becomes a quantified restriction. All people are not equal. In their dignity, yes everyone is equal. But in ability, there are men and women more competent, more intelligent, more productive, more diligent and more persuasive which makes them unequal in the ability and therefore based upon their merit deserve higher compensation. [That's why I'm against the extravagant, yes I said extravagant, welfare programs employed by the United States. Minimal food, shelter and clothing are expected to those who are without, but is it an existential necessity to have a government supplied cell phone?] Ideally communism is bad. Practically it is even worse. Hence the reason why it cannot truly succeed.

Centralized structure? I can visit the churches of 20 different protestant denominations and independent churches downtown in my city. population: 170 000. You say "scholars" are the most important. The day to day teachings of a priest / speaker are at least equally important, as they cement, exemplify and highlight the moral attitudes of their congregation. this following list does not list "Christians" who are involved in independent churches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members Nowhere does my argument attribute an equal proportion of extremists based on their particular faith. I argue that there is a significant amount of extremists who declare themselves as members of both faiths. I argue that the media marginalizes Christian extremists, and propagates the "threat" of Muslim extremists. defining an extremist as a "radical fundamentalist" or "missionary fundamentalist" many basic tenets of the republicans define them all as extremists (which in global political terms makes sense) I was referring to "scholars" in Islam who issue fatwa. A scholar in Islam is always at least an imam (priest). I'm not talking scholars as in Christian theologians. A scholar just denotes someone [clergy] who is a "lawyer" of shari'a. And that Wikipedia list that you linked proved my point numerically. I said the vast majority population wise in Christianity was under a hierarchy. I believe there's like 1.2 billion Catholics, plus like 200 million Eastern Orthodox and 50 million Oriental Orthodox, those alone number to about 1.5billion. Now unless there are 1.5 billion nondenominational independent Christians [which is physically impossible], my point still stands. As for me saying you leaned towards the attribution of equal distribution of extremism that was eisegesis on my part.

Give me an hour and I can point out about 20 places in the New Testament where the WBC is outright wrong. "God hates [bleep]s" contradicts the very core of Christianity. How many places in the Qu'ran can Muslims point out that contradict what the extremists are doing? A peaceful religion's response to crazies burning its holy book would be to pray for that individual, not put out death threats. Clearly we didn't see that here. We also saw that many middle easterners had a very difficult time distinguishing this nobody from all of Christianity, the West or even the POTUS. Freedom of speech is an impossible concept to them, and the world is worse off for it. from the Qu'ran: " You shall not take your own life." it doesn't get much clearer than that. Americans and the rest of the world are xenophobic, and simply don't even know the basics of Islam. the community and religious leaders of Muslim groupings are not the ones to issue death threats. I'm pretty sure if i staged an "abortion party" or "bible-burning fest" i could get the extreme right to issue death threats in front of the media. I'm pretty sure i could get the same death threats for portraying Jesus as a canibal in a political cartoon, or for wanting to build a "Mega-Mosque" 2 blocks from ground zero. you paint all Muslims as extremists, but excuse Christian fundamentalists as a "tiny minority" "Freedom from slander and the mockery of Holy Symbols" is an impossible concept to many westeners, especially Americans. Speech doesn't necessarily have to be 100% free, but can be regulated to disallow behaviors that can only be demeaning and disrespectful ( such as the laws are in many European democracies). The misunderstandings are a two-way street. We impose our "universal rights" on them, and they impose their "universal rights" on us. Not really. Due to the decentralized nature of Islam, scholars are allowed to issue a "fataawa" (better known in its plural "fatwa") which are opinions of scholars, many of which the West concern involves killing people. Because the vast majority [population wise] of Christianity has a centralized hierarchy, no one can really issue death warrants because there aren't really popular fringe bishops. I would say an Ayatollah is the Islamic equal to a Christian patriarch and I can easily name Ayatollah Khomeini off the top of my head for issuing a fataawa for the death of the writer of the Satanic Verses, but I cannot recall a patriarch doing so. I can see you're trying to be impartial which I admire as many more people should be but impartiality also requires that you see each group as is, not mentally equalize them [such as if Islam is comprised of 1% of extremists, than there is an equal percent in Christianity or that each have equal dispositions towards extremism. I know you didn't say that verbatim but that's how you were leaning.].

Amen. Obama is wrong for having sued for the removal of the Arizona Immigration Law as it was only an extension of a federal law that is never enforced and as a result many illegal immigrants are allowed to just waltz right in and stay until they either collected the amount of TAX FREE money they wanted or they had a child in the US and then I doubt most police officers would deport parents away from their child. I understand life in other countries may be a lot more difficult then life in the US, but that doesn't give you the right to break the law. I know plenty of immigrants who are here legally, they pay their taxes and they go onto being very successful. It is unjust for the immigrants who comply with all the regulations and laws, who do pay taxes and are accounted for, that there are Mexicans who get an easy ticket in, escape taxes, collect social program benefits and than if they ever commit a crime they'll be deported and can sneak over the border again. Oh and those who decry the Arizona Law as "racist and discriminatory", go look up Mexico's illegal alien policies, like the government can bar foreigners if they upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics." and foreigners regardless of status can be deported without due process, as well as those who are illegally in the country can receive 2yrs of jail time [10yrs for a second offense] in addition to more time for evasion of deportation. Now on the matter of terrorists crossing our border, I don't know to be honest how many terrorists go to Mexico/Canada and than cross the border, but that's specifically why we should have tighter borders. It only takes a few terrorists to start things like 9/11. Our borders are so dangerous because no one enforces the fed laws that are in place, and even if they are enforced they're a joke because you can just sneak back over the border so there's no incentive to try to legally enter the US, as there are many benefits of being an illegal [which I listed a few in my first response above]. It can be solved by imposing much stricter laws concerning illegal immigrants, but making granting amnesty to any current illegal immigrant as long as they admit they're illegal, learn English, pay tax on their total American income and become accountable to the US police. Worker's visas should be granted as well, but anyone without proper documentation is allowed to be detained and/or heavily fined. Identification must be presented by anyone upon request of the police, which is not racial profiling quite frankly. It's a fact that Mexicans compose 31% of the illegal alien population in the US so its a mathematical probability if more Mexicans are asked than anyone else due to the fact that 1 in every 3 illegal immigrants is Mexican. And I think legalizing marijuana would decrease crime because the cost of marijuana would go down making it less profitable for dealers, and it would provide an income boost for the states which than in turn can be used to enforce illegal immigrant laws. I don't understand open border activists who complain about how "evil" and "discriminatory" the Arizona law is. As stated, the fed law was preexisting, plus the US exists to serve the citizens of the US, not every illegal immigrant that breaks the law to enter the country. And I hate the constant use of American interaction with Native Americans as illegal immigration. Actually it wasn't, aside from it being legal, it happened a while ago so it should have no bearing on the current generation of Americans, most of which were not here during the land acquisitions. If all countries had to give up land that belonged to people's ancestors land, which is no responsibility of theirs as they did not cause it, than most countries in the world shouldn't exist and there would be thousands of splinter countries.

The crusaders were hardly Christian and in the end the Eastern Christians ended up paying the price for the next 800yrs by the Muslims. Rarely is one group always in the right, or in the same stance for that matter. The important thing to overcoming intolerance is not saying one group is right and the other is not [as that is hardly ever true] but we must let go of things we cannot change [hence turn the other cheek, turning the other cheek is a Semitic expression for forgiving/ignoring insults, not being stepped on] and not generalize.

That's not making a point, that's being spiteful and doing the same ignorance he is doing to all Christians.

Very nicely articulated :thumbup:

9/11 was horrible but perhaps instead of dwelling on something nearing a decade past, we should all cry and pray for the hundreds of thousand of innocent civilians that we have killed in the Middle East [mainly Iraq].

Transliteration is very difficult in being exact, especially since the first letter of the word Qu'ran in Arabic is a qaf which is a glottal stopped q or normally just omitted in casual conversation [no english equivilant], modified by a damma which gives it a oo sound [but there is no vowel], followed by a ra and then a nun [self-explanatory letters]. Using an apostrophe is more aware of the stop but to be quite honest its entirely useless because it doesn't explain much. Anyhow I would say Koran is preferred by those unfamiliar with the Arabic language because in transliteration values k is a kaf, and an o would be the letter waw which would make a long u sound.

I don't understand why he would want to burn Qu'rans. It will just get more media attention and make more people more tolerant as people react to extremes with extremes [in my opinion]. I find his reasoning that it is a message to radical Islam very off as not only radical Muslims [obivously] use the Qu'ran, and such sweeping statements are what cause East-West misunderstandings. I'm sure he would find do more then "not like it" if there was a burn the Bible day to protest the WBC.

You can always steal them.

2 days til I start Senior yr (233days til its over). I still gave a lot of work to do but I know I'll finish it in time, somehow. I drive myself to school and I hate parking so much. The city hates our school so there's a law were you can't park on all the streets [except two] within a 3 block radius from the school from the hours of 8am-3pm Monday-Friday -.-. The two roads have max 80 parking spots, half of which you cannot park in Wednesday-Friday. There's about 250 seniors who drive plus maybe like 10 juniors, so I'm probably going to have to park at our athletic center and then take a bus to school... I'm really hoping I win our parking lottery [2 students win every 2 weeks and they get a spot each in the faculty parking lot for 2 weeks].

Between friends and last minute summer assignments, looks like I won't be playing during Bonus XP weekend.

Half empty is a more logical assumption in terms of planning because I find it better to overshoot the negativity of a situation in preparation for the worst, that way you're prepared for the worst possible situation and in the greater chances that the situation isn't so bad it's a relief and pleasant surprise.

This is funny because I was just contemplating this the other day actually. I came to the conclusion that friend is used extremely loosely and that the chances are someone who calls you a friend, or even their best friend, they are only an incidental acquaintance who won't last very long. So the criteria I decided my actual friends must have to be considered an actual friend is I don't despise them, they're considerate and they'll always be sincere. I get slightly annoyed when someone calls me their friend and I would not agree in the slightest, which seems to happen a lot. In that case, I only have maybe a handful of friends. The only people I confidently call a "friend" are the people who have seen the best and worst of me, and I in them, and we still are friends in the end, people I've known for like 10yrs. I find it better to know who your true friends are rather then to lie to yourself and say you have, say 100, friends who really aren't worth the title.

I just [recently, not literally like just now] ended it with a crazy paranoid girl who thought I cheated on her with a good friend of mine.

Oh to be a freshman again. Good times. Good luck. Watch out for the sophomores *hissss*.

Hmm that seems like a pretty cool class. My school doesn't offer like any electives. My schedule is: [start @ 8:45 3x, 9:35 2x] AP Art History AP Calc AB AP Chem + Lab Honors English IV Honors Italian IV AP Microeconomics Honors Senior Theology Honors Senior Theology Seminar [end @ 2:45, 3:30 including after school clubs] Standard High Arabic at 4:15 and out of those Chem, Italian, Econ and Art History are my supposed electives. We don't have anything like Psychology, Philosophy, etc. :/ Oh well at least Seniors get to pick the color of their blazers and we have really comfy polos until the underclassmen who have to wear itchy, scratchy polos. Agreed!

I had a dream last night that I was in Shoprite and a fat girl pinned me down trying to cut my sleeves with small scissors and she kept trying to trick me into looking away -.- If dreams are suppose to show hopes/fears/experiences...what was that suppose to be? I thought you're not suppose to remember stupid dreams.

I never said I was a Muslim or a "Christian-Muslim", simpleton, the only thing I said was your reasoning is flawed.

Why don't you want them there? Yea, I can't tell if I'm being baited. But I'll take it. Even if only on purely religion reasons: I'm Christian, I wouldn't support the building of any other religious center. Don't confuse that with hate of the religion, while the two are usually mixed in. I don't hate Muslims, while I only have two Muslim friends, I welcome them. But they support a competing religion, it's like supporting the opposing foot ball team in Hicksville Tennessee. People from up north (atheists/agnostics in this situation) will say what's the big deal, it's JUST A SPORT. However, to the ones down south (generally religious people) it's life or death. Now I'm not saying I would ever protest it, thats just in bad taste, and lets face it, gets nowhere. But if they asked for monetary donations, or if I had to vote, I'd politely decline. On other reasons, again, I'll re-iterate. It's in bad taste. No one is denying the terrorists were Muslim, and Islam-motivated. And, no one is denying that they were extremists, and the majority of Muslims aren't like that. But here's the clincher, they are still Muslim. It's simply disrespectful, do they have the right to build there? As long as they get all of their permits approved, fine by me. But c'mon, it's disrespectful to the ones who lost their lives, no matter how unrelated. so, following a Christian parallel here: Christianity is responsible for the IRA, thus no new churches should be built in Ireland, where countless IRA terrorist attacks in the name of Christianity have taken place during the last 50 years? you're blaming someone who isn't responsible for the attacks. Islam isn't a "religion of hate" just like Christianity isn't propagandist and technology-hating (Amish comes to mind here). I think you need to rationalize your anger here, and blame those who are to blame, not just someone that's easy to blame for something they're clearly not involved in. There's no anger, and I said they weren't involved in my own post. wat. And you know what? if that's the case (which I know it is) maybe they shouldn't have any Christian churches built. You have strange reasoning. Because someone from the same group of people as you did something, your entire group is to blame and as such you will be restricted for actions outside of your control. That's horrible reasoning, that's restricting people's rights to avoid having to defend their rights to keep bias people, who blame people who aren't responsible, quiet. That's like me opposing the Deutscher Klub at school because even though I don't believe all German people didn't/don't support what the Nazis did, it is offensive to me as a Jew [which I am not].

Haha that was amazing.

I found this kind of funny, it sounds like a paranoid person making up stats then trying to sound educated: http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/72047 One little excerpt: "I'm sure that some will respond that polls have shown American Muslims to be more peaceful in general than Muslims worldwide. I don't accept that. Muslims are mandated by their religion to lie to "the infidel" (ie all non-Muslims) about their goals and their beliefs and anything else that can give them an advantage." A kafir (infidel) in the Qu'ran refers to "heathens" i.e. people who don't believe in God, pagans, evil people, etc. Furthermore the Qu'ran tells Muslims to be kind towards Ahl Al Ktaab (People of the Book), which are Jews, Christians, Sabians and Zoroastrians. These kind of things being written express the true ignorance and fear of things we aren't familiar with in America.