Because somebody is attracted to Dave's level-headed discourse, his
common sense approach to things, his fairness and patience and his
ability to put up with weird and hateful camp followers such as you and
Ken, that "attraction" should not be construed as having anything to do
with sexuality. Only some sex-starved witch with whom no man in his
right mind would wish to dally would make the exclusive association
between attraction and sex.

You, who claim to have such a fine relationship with the circles of
life, have no inkling that one can be attracted to a beautiful glade, a
babbling brook, a grand sunset, a high mountain pass, a quiet cavern, a
new born baby, a kitten, a puppy, a rose, etc. without it having sexual
connotations. I'd say you're quite sick and quite desperate. Perhaps you
should conjure up a spell so some man might be tricked into your bed?
Probably the only way you ever get laid. Might do wonders for your sour
attitude around here.

Shad O'Shay

Go look at it yourself, AND check the headers, ya lazy POS!

Newsgroups: alt.guns
From: DaveInLakeVi...@webtv.net (Dave in Lake Villa)
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:26:17 -0600
Local: Tues, Nov 14 2006 4:26 pm
Subject: Re: Shop Wal*Mart for a Gay America!

And ahy are you so vehemently defending Dimwit's lifestyle when he
won't?
A lifestyle that you know NOTHING about, but just assume that he's a
complete saint cause he's a bible thumper.
His divorce, his abortion, his materialism, his homosexual adventures,
his interest in little kids?

You, in other words.

"An it harm none; do as ye will." - A much simpler and unrepressive code
with the same ends.

YAWN! : Time for an interlude. :-

Fundamentalists attitude towards their religious text
By Vexen Crabtree 2003 Oct 26

Translation of scripture
This is the case especially with Christian scripture: We have very little of
the original text. We know that from very early on mistranslations have been
introduced, such as the mistaken usage of the word "virgin" to describe the
prophecy of Jesus' birth since the major Septuagint translation (which was
the version used for nearly all modern Bibles until academics have
discovered older (and some original) Biblical text).

Thankfully, one thing that fundamentalists do get right is their determined
and enviable attempts to read scripture in it's original language. Obviously
this is much easier for Arabs! By learning and reading it in the original
language, or in very early translations, we minimize the translation errors
(and assumptions) that slowly crept into later version.

However, we only have portions of the original texts and mostly we do rely
on translations. Also, we can only possibly read the text from within our
own cultural framework. We read text literally, chronologically and
philosophically, where both The Koran and much of The Bible was written in
prose, in poetry, was not written literally but written with many symbolic
aspects, word games, shifts in time and place and many cultural references
that we cannot possibly understand now. All these add up to create fearsome
troubles with translating these texts and understanding them across hundreds
of years of cultural difference.

Criteria of selection
Fundamentalists largely hold that Scripture is the only authority we have as
regards to the truth: It is an absolute truth. However, in order to select
which text they consider inerrant there must first be non-scriptural basis
for this selection. Before a person considers a text inerrant, they are in a
position where their cultural and class position in the world dictate their
knowledge of religious texts and their approach to them. These secular and
coincidental factors determine whether a person comes to decide that a text
is inerrant.

It is an illogical situation that once a fundamentalist has chosen a text,
they then deny that they have no other source of authority: If there is no
source of authority other than the text they've chosen, then their reason
for selecting the text has become invalid. Beyond this point of
self-contradiction it can be seen that the reasons are complex psychological
ones.

Fundamentalists have been unable to arrive at a logical criteria for how a
secular living person should select, from all the religious texts available
that have adherents who claim it is inerrant, which one is true.

By Prophecy?
All claim that correct prophecies validate their text, and all claim that
all the other texts don't really have correct prophecies. It is impossible
to investigate all such claims yourself, in one lifetime, so it appears that
a logical intellectual choice based on prophecy is impossible. OR, it is
ignorant: A choice can't be made without ignorance until a person has
actively investigated all claims of prophecy by all religious texts. Until
the individual has done this, they're merely guessing which one can be
judged, by criteria of it's prophecies, to be "more" divine than other
texts.

Sensible possibility: That God has inspired multiple correct prophecies in
multiple religious texts OR that magic operates as part of the natural laws
of the universe, and supernatural prophecy making is possible whether or not
God has a part in it. Of all the prophecies that have not come true (such as
the thousands made about the end of the world, etc), you could very sensibly
infer that any true prophecies are only true by coincidence and luck, not by
supernatural means. In all cases, it can be seen that judging religious
texts by their prophecies is a poor method.

By Faith?
Decisions by "faith" are merely determined in 99% of cases by cultural and
societal factors, by psychology, and by the truth of the matter of which
text is true. This is relegate the choice to basically random factors, and
is a shallow and intellectually dishonest (or plainly stupid) rule to adopt.
That millions of adherents have "faith" in a style of religion are a big
indicator that the presence of this faith is not a good judge - if you
judged by mass popularity, then you would not ever arrive at the conclusion
that fundamentalism was the truer religious course. Selection by faith is
shallow and allow faith can have a strong hold, it's sufferers must learn
that it is a cultural and psychological phenomenon.

Or, of course, that God does indeed support multiple (even contradictory)
religions, and therefore that it doesn't really matter which one you pick.

By morals?
It is circular logic to claim that a text is an absolutely authority on
morals, and then to claim that you can judge by the morals which text is
true, before knowing which text is true. If you assume particular morals,
then look at religious texts, you will end up selecting the text that most
matches your own morals. If you select a text then claim that it's morals
are absolutely correct, and therefore that the book has the best morals, you
could have drawn exactly the same conclusion no matter which religious text
you've selected, and the factors which determine which one you select in the
first place are therefore purely cultural and psychological - not moral. We
also simply have no idea of knowing what morals God does indeed consider
best. Selection by morals is a fundamentally flawed selection criteria,
requiring either genuine stupidity, ignorance or doublethink.

All scripture is interpreted subjectively
This is a major problem with all divine text. When we read things, our brain
takes in the text and interprets the information. Such interpretation is
subjective. There is no "clear" meaning except what our brains give to what
we take in through our sense. All people read different nuances and subtexts
into text, and read the very text differently, according to their own
experience of life and reality.

 "We forget things, think things have happened when they haven't, we make
up and forgot things we've done... we're sure something is true but discover
it isn't. Our brain is an imperfect organic machine, not a mystical
repository of truth. Whenever we view, perceive, store or retrieve
experiences we make errors.... lots of little errors and sometimes big ones.
The results is that the total picture is just a mis-match of guesses and
patchwork. We all hope that we get by. The reality is that no two people
ever experience the same event or thing in the same way, because the
complexities and depths of their errors and assumptions are different for
every person, every event is experienced slightly differently. No-one has
precisely the same point of view on any event.
 [...] The same fact presented to two people will be interpreted and stored
in two different ways. It's almost as if there is no "real" world... just
millions of versions of the world and we just haven't got the mental power
as living beings to see what is real and what is not. Logic and consensus
are the only ways of ascertaining what is real and what isn't, but we can
only ever know to the extent that experience gives us only a fuzzy and
inaccurate picture of reality, and consensus is merely a diplomatic
compromise with only logic and reason to back it up. [...] At the end of the
day it's only one persons' point of view versus another and logic is not
self-affirming of the world, only self-contained."

 "Subjectivism" by Vexen 2000 Nov 11

Do fundamentalists take scripture more or less seriously than liberals?
I regard "fantasy" as being less serious than reality. For example,
wishful-thinking about a woman and her character is to take her less
seriously as a person than to honestly look at the reality of the woman. To
give her more respect and to take her more seriously you'd have to accept
her as she is, plainly, and without personal fantasy corrupting your
approach to her.

The conservatives do not take scripture seriously, nor give it as much
respect, as liberals. They allow personal fantasies to distort it's reality
and therefore corrupt it with their own wishful thinking rather than
approaching it realistically. They must, subconsciously and
partially-consciously, know that their wishful thinking is overriding a
realistic respect for scripture.

To respect scripture should be to view it realistically, as-it-is, and not
as you want it to be. A persons' want for an authoritive text (so they don't
have to make their own choices or justify their own beliefs) is not an
honest or respectful bias to take to a religious text: Such an approach
corrupts the text and produces a caricature and distortion of truth.

Generic theological arguments against fundamentalism
A loving god would not use "inerrant texts" as it's method of communication
If God wanted to inspire knowledge of itself or of it's own rules, it would
not use "inerrant texts" to do it. Especially, it would not use Hebrew or
Arabic as the original language and then not reveal perfectly translated
versions later on, too. If God wants inerrant text it would have inspired
inerrant translations. But there are none - all our translations contain
errors that we continually correct, and have always done, throughout the
ages. The history of the Koran and Christian Bible contain multiple examples
of mistaken translations.

If God wanted some absolute knowledge of itself, it would simply put that
knowledge directly into everyone's head. There would be none of this
"inspired" scripture, no culturally-bound religious founders, no revelation
to random roaming mystics in Palestine, but instead it would impart such
knowledge to everyone. This would end all translation problems, all
transmission problems and be somewhat more instantaneous than the
historically hap-hazard and slow spread of religious text.

In short: If God wanted us to know something, it would tell everyone, not
just a particular tribe of people, in a particular language, and then say no
more. The conservatives are severely limiting God's power by saying that it
itself is bound by a book of text, they are saying that God itself is
short-sighted, inefficient and somewhat haphazard in it's methods.

From http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/fundamentalism_text.html

And I can post a single guideline that encapsulates and encompasses all of
those *without* restricting freedom. :

"An it harm none; do as ye will."

You are allowed, by God and by todays Civil Law, to kill
someone in self defense should your life be threatened.

If and only if it's a clear case of you or them. : That even goes with
British law. (However by British law you're not allowed to keep a gun at
home except if licensed and used for sport or whatever.)

REPLY:  Yes, your life has to be truly in danger to use a deadly weapon
on someone.  If you have to use the Gun for sport so you can use it for
home self defense in possible extreme life- threatening situations, then
get licensed and 'use it for sport' ;  Britain is a mini-america now
with violence , and anarchy is well underway according to the BBC,
Yorkshire Post newspaper, and my Aunt in Wincanton .  Can u obtain
Pepper Gas over there legally ?  Its your second best defense (with a
machete being a close 3rd).

'the 10 Commandments and Jesus' Teachings, are the highest moral and
ethical ideals available.'

They are?

REPLY:  Whats higher than them ?  Moral relativism ?!

'I was anyway referring to the torture and murder of millions of
European women by the church in the middle ages and before.'

REPLY:  The Roman Catholic Church led by rogue Popes ;  not the ideals
of Jesus' teachings in The Bible.

'I was also referring to the thousands of wars in the name of "God".'

REPLY:  People being murdered in 'the name of God'  is lame
justification for the desired agenda ;  can you attack the 10
Commandments and Jesus' teachings which is how Christians are supposed
to live , instead of focusing on those who disobey The Bible for
blood-thirstyness  ?   You are aware that the bloodiest century in the
name AND PHILOSOPHY   of atheism was the 20th century arent you ???