http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...45,00.html

From it:

Actually a good idea. and she didn't tell her parents either.

Then it asks, "is it constitutional?"
According to the AJC, it's constitutional (and they're Jewish, and I've actually heard of them, lol)
Which it is, as long as the course is optional.

It's an even sadder day when the Constitution of the United States doesn't make it into the jury room. If I recall, there's at least some sort of separation of the church and state (although amendment I doesn't actually call it that or specifically reference it.)
So yes, Pedro was right. Not that we needed any doubt in that at all.

If I remember correctly, the actual Hebrew said "Thou shalt not murder," NOT "thou shalt not kill."

They forgot Greek/Roman mythology, and one other.

Some parts of the article are a little sickening; others seem to be pretty cool.

"Thou shalt not murder" applies only to the Israelites, you can stone heathens to death all you want. Oddly enough, that would include Christians.

America is actually a secular nation:

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”
--George Washington

“Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man”
--Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
--Abraham Lincoln

“Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men”
--Voltaire
I have a whole page of these if anyone is interested.

i'm interested.

According to Dawkins in "The God Delusion", "Thou shalt not kill" really was meant to apply only to Jews. Much like "love thy neighbor" meant "love thy Jew neighbor", and similar others.

oh. so that explains why killing homosexuals is ok.

gotcha.

I realize that this is an offtopic response, but this is my last visit to this site. While I know it is possible to find out all sorts of information about a person when they are browsing the web, I do not find overcaffein8d's signature in which he tells me what my IP address is, my ISP, and my browser to be that amusing.

I realize the software is probably such that only I see that, and its not being collected somewhere, but it certainly makes me feel that this is no longer a safe forum.

Sorry, Pedro. I enjoyed reading and occasionally responding. If anything is done about this, feel free to email me, and I will return. Until then, peace!

Every web site in the world gets exactly that much information in the server logs. The only way to avoid that is to use some anonymizing proxy server.

That kind of signature (which I've seen in other places as well) accesses a remote image, which is on some server (on danasoft.com, I'd guess), which generates the image based on the IP address and browser information accessing it.

Since Jim isn't reading this, I'll contact him. overcaffein8d, could you please change your sig to avoid this confusion in the future?

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”
--George Washington

“Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man”
--Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
--Abraham Lincoln

“Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men”
--Voltaire

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies."
--Thomas Jefferson

"Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!'"--John Adams

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.”
-James Madison

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
--James Madison

"Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history."
--James Madison

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"
--John Adams

"That Jesus Christ was not God is evidence from his own words."
--Ethan Allen

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of... each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."--Thomas Paine
(The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, pp. 8,9 (Republished 1984, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY))

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."--James Madison

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."--James Madison
(The Madisons by Virginia Moore, P. 43 (1979, McGraw-Hill Co. New York, NY) quoting a letter by JM to William Bradford April 1, 1774, and James Madison, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Joseph Gardner, p. 93, (1974, Newsweek, New York, NY) Quoting Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments by JM, June 1785.)

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion... has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble."--Benjamin Franklin
(Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Thomas Fleming, p. 404, (1972, Newsweek, New York, NY) quoting letter by BF to Exra Stiles March 9, 1970.)

"The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained."--Thomas Jefferson
(Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History by Fawn M. Brodie, p. 453 (1974, W.W) Norton and Co. Inc. New York, NY) Quoting a letter by TJ to Alexander Smyth Jan 17, 1825, and Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 246 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to John Adams, July 5, 1814.)

"[...] denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian."--Ethan Allen
(Religion of the American Enlightenment by G. Adolph Koch, p. 40 (1968, Thomas Crowell Co., New York, NY.) quoting preface and p. 352 of Reason, the Only Oracle of Man and A Sense of History compiled by American Heritage Press Inc., p. 103 (1985, American Heritage Press, Inc., New York, NY.))

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
--James Madison

"No man on Earth has less taste or talent for criticism than myself, and the least and last of all should I undertake to criticize works on the Apocalypse (Revelations). It was between fifty and sixty years since I read it and then I considered it as merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherence of our own nightly dreams."
--Thomas Jefferson

"The Christian god can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of the people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites." --Thomas Jefferson

it's gone.

anyway, it's not the server, it's a PHP or Perl script that runs in your browser. I see why this would freak you out, but it's run on your computer, not the server.

This post was last modified: 03-26-2007 11:59 PM by overcaffein8d.