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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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i have keep out of this, but...
yes, US (american ) culture can be pervasive.. but the fact remains, if a religious person want to dress modestly, they can and do, with out any one saying boo! there are lots of religious jews and muslims, who walk through the street of ny, covered from ankle to to wrist, with there head covered. there religious communities that are cloistered, or semi-cloistered.
hey, you want to live that way, its okay by us.. there are families, (like my son's) that think TV is a bad influence, and don't have one. no one forces the culture down your throat. yeah, its there, and its out in the open, but you are free to accept or reject --or to accept as much as you want or as little as you want.
this country was started by religious fundimentalist who didn't want these kinds of freedoms, but, hey we moved on.
America has the highest percentage of the population going to church, and huge amounts of money go to religious organizations-- but no one is force to church, no one is forced to "piety" no one is forced to give money to religious organizations. if that is threatening.. if that is what earns use the title of the great satan, then there is very little we can do.
of all of the western world, we are the most free, and the most religious. freedom does not destroy religion.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
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Last night BBC had story that US had a military unit in Tajikistan with plan to capture bin Laden, but it was cancelled because estimate of casualties was too high. The force is apparently still there. Maybe this is what Bush is talking about. I haven't been able to find anything about it in US news. Has anyone else heard anything in US news?
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, I put a link to what seems part of that story up earlier in this thread yesterday.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
I have been meaning to put something together on this topic, but have so far not found enough coherence of thought. I would like, however, to suggest a hypothesis.
It is possible that, as an organizing social principle, religion played a role in last weeks crimes. I do not, however, believe that religion lies at the root of those crimes. It is at best a pretext for attitudes and behaviors whose root causes are not subject to such simple categorization. Raw power must be considered at a fundamental level, and its correlative powerlessness. On a metaphysical level--do not reject the notion of the metaphysical on account of the term--the will to destruct is probably deeply bound to the will to create. Inhumanity is bound fast to humanity at the level of humanity's very possibility of existence. Destruction cannot disaffirm humanity. According to this hypothesis, humanity is indivisible. But, of course, I recognize in the last two sentences a flash of idealism.
(The three monotheistic religions remind me of the wives of a single husband, where each vies with the other for an exclusive legitimacy. I may have mentioned in an earlier post that the Yiddish word 'tsoris' --travail-- is the Talmudic word for multiple brides. Without hoping to give further offense where none was ever intended, I will say one must pity this God for his squabbling brides, who finds his emblem on the battle flags of opposing armies.)
That's a smattering.
I'll try to work out the hypothesis.
IP
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
Actually, I believe most would agree with me that a hege
Sorry, the server died in the middle of this one.
And I spent hours trying to work something out about reaping, sowing, and hedges and trying to imagine what the point might be. 
Bingley
Bingley
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
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<I'm thinking of converting
Yes. And as I understand it, a beauty of Bhuddism is you don't need to convert. You need only be, or not. To convert--if I may inject a paradox of language, not of practice--would be antithetical to its spirit. At the level of religion, it seems to me, *a grave trouble is the emphasis on renouncing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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mav, that still leaves a bit of a problem for a planeload of people ...../.... a far, far better thing would be an auto-pilot controlled landing. and believe me, this technology will be available very soon.
Indeed®, on all points tsuwm - I believe this is practicable now, just not deemed advisable for the public's feeling of security ("look, mom - no hands!") My point about fuel dump is that the mere existence of that would render such hijacks improbable, since the deterrent effect of knowing their lunacy would fail should cut out 99% of the chances.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Who are the People for the American Way? Is it a real organization or something like the mythical new world order that so many people are convinced is coming to take away our national sovereignty?
Falwell shot himself in the foot with that one! Too bad it wasn't in his mouth at the time.
TEd
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