Society & Culture - 2 December 2006

How many people out there believe that aliens exist?

2006-12-02 03:07:16 · 11 answers · asked by Guitarpix 4 in Religion & Spirituality

in the grand scheme of human existence has God incarnated numerus times apart from just Lord Jesus

2006-12-02 03:06:58 · 14 answers · asked by gasp 4 in Religion & Spirituality

Where does involutary indoctrination in infancy and childhood fit into a free nation? How does this affect us and the children who are taught to think "one way" before they can gather exposure to the many diverse choices in the world?

2006-12-02 03:05:08 · 7 answers · asked by chicalinda 3 in Religion & Spirituality

When someone tells you that you are very soft-spoken, or have a kindly but soft-spoken voice, are they complimenting you or criticizing you?

2006-12-02 03:02:24 · 13 answers · asked by Chelsea 2 in Other - Society & Culture

the miracles and divine intervention for the past 2000 years?

2006-12-02 03:02:00 · 21 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

2006-12-02 03:01:38 · 26 answers · asked by mdsparks 1 in Christmas

I went to a class last night where we meditated by focusing on our breath, breathing in and breathing out. Breathing out let out all the anger with black smoke, breathing in let in white light.

Afterwards I asked if the meeting I attended was considered a "service" or a meeting or what. I was told it was generally considered a "class."

I expressed my own feelings about that term and how I associated it with getting tested and being graded. That was not the case with what was being taught there - the inner world of ourselves is as pertinent to our happiness as the objective world... if not more.

2006-12-02 03:01:16 · 6 answers · asked by jsb3t 3 in Religion & Spirituality

2006-12-02 02:59:27 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Holidays

:)

2006-12-02 02:59:13 · 19 answers · asked by Zifikos 5 in Religion & Spirituality

2006-12-02 02:59:07 · 6 answers · asked by psf 1 in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender

okay well i work at a day-care.. and this year we are having a grab bag for christmas. and i have this 17/18 year old girl named liz. We are not aloud to spend more then 25$ on the gift. So basically i need something that is cheap and that she will like. I never reaally talked to her before so i do not know what she is into. Can anyone just give me some cheap ideas. thank you

2006-12-02 02:58:04 · 9 answers · asked by Jessssss 1 in Other - Holidays

Are they more people in the world who are born or who die each day?

2006-12-02 02:57:23 · 5 answers · asked by Portia 2 in Other - Society & Culture

Have the Guts to Post UP!!!
Accept e-mails or Make a 360 Page!!!
Be a Man or Women or What EVER!!!
Give All the People on Y-360 A Chance To GIVE BACK the @hit that Your Give Them!!!
I see lots of People or Y-360
Talk The Talk, But I See Ever Few Walk The Walk!!!
I've heard Various Terms/Words being Thrown Around!!!
Have the Courage To Give As Good As You Get!!!

I Know I'm Opening Myself UP!!!
For Those Cowards I Say to YOU BRING IT!!!

Hokahe!!!
My Brother's and Sister's

2006-12-02 02:56:42 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Society & Culture

hoq would you decorate a horse stall in a hawaiian christmas theme the horse is gonna wear a straw hat and a lei and me and my friend will weat grass skirts and leis and then the stall so far we have made a snowman with a surfboard, a palm tree with coconuts painted like ordaments and also santa on his magic canoe

any more ideas?

2006-12-02 02:56:17 · 4 answers · asked by Skittles 4 in Christmas

Here are the lyrics

You go to church every sunday
fornicate every monday
what are you some kind of dumb fake
religious hypocrite more than one way
vandalize your boyfriends wife hyundai

Here's the song
http://www.listentocharlie.com/music.html track 4

2006-12-02 02:55:48 · 23 answers · asked by Black Atheist 1 in Religion & Spirituality

According to the twisted logic recently espoused by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the failure to support illegal, immoral and unnecessary wars defines one as a terrorist. Let me be clear about where I stand: I know who the real terrorists are, and can name each one of them—Rumsfeld among the rest.



Everywhere you go in America you see the slogan, “Support our troops.” You see it on bumper stickers, storefronts, flags and banners, yellow ribbons and even in the windows of private homes. But what does it mean to support our troops? Is it to send them into harm’s way; to invade and occupy sovereign nations in illegal wars for empire? Is it to ask them to commit heinous crimes, to maim and to kill innocent civilians; to torture, insult, and to humiliate people who have done us no harm? Is it to steal the natural wealth that belongs to other nations and turn it over to American corporations?

If that is what it means, then I cannot support our troops. I cannot wish them well if their purpose is conquer other people, and plunder the wealth of other countries that have done us no harm. That would require me to endorse crimes against humanity conducted under the guise of national security and patriotism. I cannot do that—I will not. It is simply wrong.

Neither should we, as we so often do, confuse supporting our troops with supporting the president, or wrongful and immoral policies of corrupt government. The president and his ilk do not support our troops or he would not use them as pawns; he would take care of them when they come home broken and torn with psychic scars. He does not care about them—they are only a means to an end.

No, the best way to support our troops is to take a principled stand; to hold the moral high ground—to bring them home alive and whole. A government must not be allowed to require any of its citizens to engage in immoral or criminal behavior on its behalf. When a government behaves like a crime syndicate it does not mean that the people should follow its example—they must provide a better alternative, and refuse their allegiance to it.

So if the failure to support a government’s wrongful policies makes me a terrorist—so be it. If speaking truth to power makes one a terrorist—sign me up; move me to top of the NSA and FBI lists of suspects. Send forth the assassins with their rifles. If exposing the lies and corruption that attends power makes me a terrorist—I will proudly wear the crown and bear the cost. I will cheerfully take my place alongside other terrorists with names like Thoreau, Debs, King, Gandhi, Einstein, Zinn, and Christ.

2006-12-02 02:54:04 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

If an indian person came and asked you out for instants by just lookin at his culture would u accept his offer or reject him because of his ethnicity.

2006-12-02 02:51:32 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Society & Culture

And also this sentence, "I am the salt of the earth, I am the light of the world."

2006-12-02 02:49:27 · 8 answers · asked by iustus 1 in Languages

Be honest now...Do you have a thing for the Bad Boys or lust for the Nice guys. Help the Males of the World understand what you want.

2006-12-02 02:49:12 · 5 answers · asked by Laughing Man Copycat 5 in Other - Society & Culture

Can you explain them>?
ON SLAVES
Leviticus 25:46
'And You shall take the slaves as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bondmen for ever."

THE BIRTH OF A FEMALE A DOUBLE POLLUTION
Leviticus 12: 1,2,5

WHAT TO DO TO AN APOSTATE (a disbeliever)
deutronomy 13:8,9
"Neither shall your eyes pity him (the apostate) nor shall you spare him, neither shall you try to conceal him. But you shall surely KILL him, Your hands shall be first upon him to put him to death."

I always hear Christians claiming The Muslim faith is bad because of slavery, or because of the 'killing' that goes on in their Holy book.
Maybe they haven't picked up their own Holy Book lately?
These examples are only a few.

2006-12-02 02:46:29 · 31 answers · asked by liberty_brooks 1 in Religion & Spirituality

As far as the Zionist establishment is concerned, the main enemy is not anti-Semitism, but anti-Zionism.




Prominent Zionist groups and individuals in the US are conducting a campaign of intimidation against liberal and left-wing critics of the Israeli regime and Washington’s policy toward Israel.

Tony Judt, a noted historian and the director of New York University’s Remarque Institute, was to have spoken in New York earlier this month at a meeting called by a nonprofit organization that had rented space from the Polish Consulate. After telephone calls from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee, his lecture on “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” was cancelled barely an hour before it was scheduled to begin.

Judt, a liberal academic who writes frequently for the New York Review of Books, was born and raised in Britain. He lost many members of his own family in the Holocaust, but has aroused the ire of the Zionist public relations machine because of his sharp criticisms of Israeli policies and his charge that the Israel lobby has stifled debate on the Middle East in the US.

The modus operandi of Zionist organizations such as the ADL and the American Jewish Committee is by now a familiar one. “Inquiries” are made by one or another of these groups. The message is clear.

As the Polish Consul General said in connection with the contacts made in regard to Judt’s scheduled appearance, “The phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure. That’s obvious—we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that.”

Abraham Foxman of the ADL cynically insisted that he hadn’t requested that the event be shut down, but added, “I think they made the right decision.” He then spelled out the brazenly anti-democratic and thuggish attitude of himself and his organization toward anyone who criticizes Israel’s policies and Washington’s support for those policies. “He’s taken the position that Israel shouldn’t exist,” Foxman said of Judt. “That puts him on our radar.”

To clarify his position toward Israel, Judt remarked, “The only thing I have ever said is that Israel as it is currently constituted, as a Jewish state with different rights for different groups, is an anachronism in the modern age of democracies.”

The cancellation of Judt’s lecture is only one in a series of similar incidents. Judt was also forced to cancel another speech, at Manhattan College in the Bronx, on the topic “War and Genocide in European Memory Today,” after he was asked by the event’s sponsors to censor himself by avoiding direct references to Israel.

Less than a week after the episode at the Polish Consulate, an almost identical incident took place, this time at the French Embassy. British-based author Carmen Callil had been scheduled to attend a reception on October 10 in honor of her forthcoming book, Bad Faith, an account of the Vichy official who arranged the deportation of thousands of French Jews to their deaths in the Holocaust.

This event was also canceled at the last moment, apparently because of complaints over a sentence written by the author in the postscript to the book. She wrote of becoming anxious, while researching the “helpless terror of the Jews of France,” to see “what the Jews of Israel were passing on to the Palestinian people.” She continued, “Like the rest of humanity, the Jews of Israel ‘forget’ the Palestinians. Everyone forgets.”

Zionist attempts at censorship have a long and distasteful history, especially in New York City. They are not always successful, but not for lack of trying.

Just a few months ago the New York Theatre Workshop cancelled its production of My Name is Rachel Corrie, the play about the American student killed by an Israeli military bulldozer in 2001 as she attempted to stop the destruction of the home of a Palestinian family. The production was halted after similar “inquiries” from Zionist circles. My Name is Rachel Corrie finally opened in Manhattan this month and was met with warm responses from critics and the public.

The ADL, the American Jewish Committee and other Zionist organizations disingenuously claim they are not part of a “lobby.” That is supposedly limited to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the organization whose specific aim is to influence the US government on behalf of Israel. In reality, all of these organizations devote themselves to the defense of Israel and its diplomatic and political interests. They are free to do so, but their attempts to silence their critics and smear their opponents as anti-Semites demonstrate their reactionary character.

The censorship attempts have extended onto university campuses. Campus Watch, a right-wing web site established by Daniel Pipes several years ago, has drawn up a blacklist that targets professors of Middle Eastern studies for alleged “bias” because they have dared to criticize Israel and defend the Palestinians. Supporters of Campus Watch have encouraged the sending of hate mail and threats to these professors, along with calls for their removal from their academic positions.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913 to fight against anti-Semitism, has long since betrayed any commitment to civil liberties and academic freedom when it comes to critics—including Jewish critics—of the policies and foreign policy interests of the state of Israel.

Even limited opinion polling reveals the growing opposition among American Jews to the decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, but this doesn’t stop the ADL and similar groups from speaking in the name of all Jews. The power of these unelected spokesmen is magnified many times by their wealthy sponsors and their long-established ties to dominant sections of the corporate, financial and political establishment in New York and Washington. They have succeeded over many years in propagating the myth that Judaism and Zionism are identical, and that anti-Zionism is therefore anti-Semitism.

It should be noted that the kind of criticism that Foxman of the ADL says cannot be voiced in New York City is frequently expressed within Israel itself. Israeli newspaper columnists, writers, academics and others spoke out during the recent Israeli aggression in Lebanon. Are they also to be branded anti-Semites and silenced?

As Judt himself declared, “This is serious and frightening, and only in America—not in Israel—is this a problem. These are Jewish organizations that believe they should keep people who disagree with them on the Middle East away from anyone else who might listen.”

The Zionist organizations involved in such witch-hunting and censorship utilize the issue of anti-Semitism as a red herring. They are really concerned with the foreign policy interests of the Israeli government, and specifically the maintenance of the longstanding alliance between Israel and Washington.

The alliance between American imperialism and Zionism was fully cemented some 40 years ago, in the wake of the Six Day War of 1967. Over the past several decades American defenders of the Israeli state have secured the ironclad support of both major capitalist parties, from the most liberal Democrats to the neo-conservatives in the Republican Party and the Bush Administration.

Big business politicians have vied to demonstrate their loyalty to Israeli policies, and the occasional maverick who deviates from pro-Zionist orthodoxy, like Republican Congressman Paul Findley some years ago, is usually purged at the next election with the help of millions of dollars in campaign funds from the Zionist lobby.

In the recent period, however, public criticism of the existing US policy toward Israel has begun to emerge within American foreign policy and academic circles. To some extent, the feverish campaign to silence all critics of Israel is an expression of the nervousness within American Zionist circles over this emerging policy debate.

While the US-Israel alliance has never been closer than during the administration of George W. Bush, there are signs of a possible shift. The disaster facing the US ruling elite in Iraq, along with the deepening external and internal crisis facing Israel, exemplified by its recent debacle in Lebanon, is emboldening those within the American foreign policy establishment who argue that US policy is tied too closely to that of Israel.

American Zionist organizations are acutely sensitive to these tremors, hence their attacks on John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University. Mearsheimer and Walt authored a paper earlier this year which charged that the Israel lobby had distorted US foreign policy and sought to intimidate its critics.

An article by Mearsheimer and Walt in the London Review of Books was entitled, “The Israel Lobby: Does it Have too Much Influence on US Foreign Policy?” The lobby was defined as “the loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.”

Mearsheimer and Walt articulate the views of a section of the American ruling elite which has concluded that Washington’s virtually uncritical support for Israeli foreign policy has produced a diplomatic and political disaster for US interests in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

The publication of these views was followed by hysterical charges of anti-Semitism against the authors, who were accused of stoking up anti-Semitic notions of an international Jewish conspiracy.

Socialist opponents of Zionism and imperialism do not take sides politically between Mearsheimer and Walt and their Zionist critics. The policy shift they propose, while it enrages the Zionists, has nothing to do with the interests of the international working class or the democratic rights of the Palestinians, and they are opposed to a struggle against both the Israeli and Arab bourgeois elites to unite Jewish and Arab workers on the basis of a democratic and socialist program.

We have no hesitation, however, in denouncing the crude charges of anti-Semitism leveled against Mearsheimer, Walt, Judt and similar critics of Israel.

There are, of course, anti-Semites among the opponents of the Israeli state, and they repeat the old anti-Semitic slanders. There are also a large number of anti-Semites among Israel’s supporters. Richard Nixon, whose virulent anti-Semitism was exposed on White House tapes in the wake of the Watergate scandal, had no difficulty aligning himself with Israel. Today the Zionists welcome the support of Christian fundamentalists who would like nothing more than the establishment of a right-wing theocracy in the US.

As far as the Zionist establishment is concerned, the main enemy is not anti-Semitism, but anti-Zionism. When it suits its purposes, it is perfectly prepared to recognize this vital distinction and “overlook” the anti-Semitism among its own supporters. Hence the warm accolades from the Israel lobby to such figures as Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, who received an award from the Anti-Defamation League in 2003 just days after expressing nostalgic sympathy for the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

To the extent that anti-Semitism has gained a new lease on life in the Middle East and elsewhere, this is largely the responsibility of Zionism itself. The anti-Semitic pronouncements of such figures as Iranian President Ahmadinejad are essentially the mirror image of Zionist propaganda, accepting the claim of the Israeli state to speak for all Jews and the interests of the Jewish people.

In fact, for the first half-century of its existence, Zionism was a distinct minority opinion within world Jewry. Its main opposition historically came from the left—from the socialist and internationalist opponents of all forms of nationalism and chauvinism. The attempt to smear left-wing critics as anti-Semites is one of the most despicable techniques of the Zionist propaganda machine.

The current attacks on even relatively mild critics of Israel are a sign of weakness. Longstanding Zionist myths are being increasingly exposed to the light of day. The fraudulent charge of anti-Semitism is beginning to backfire against those who level it.

The flagrant character of the Zionist intimidation campaign is such that even some committed Zionists have been forced to question it. The current issue of the New York Review of Books contains a letter entitled, “The Case of Tony Judt: An Open Letter to the ADL.”

The letter, signed by more than 100 writers, journalists and academics, criticizes the ADL’s actions in connection with the planned meeting at the Polish Consulate, declaring that “we are united in believing that a climate of intimidation is inconsistent with fundamental principles of debate in a democracy . . . the rules of the game in America oblige citizens to encourage rather than stifle public debate. We who have signed this letter are dismayed that the ADL did not choose to play a more constructive role in promoting liberty.”

Among the signers are Peter Beinart, Franklin Foer and Leon Wieseltier, all of the New Republic, one of the most vociferous defenders of the Zionist state.

2006-12-02 02:46:28 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

2006-12-02 02:45:53 · 21 answers · asked by Yorkey 2 in Religion & Spirituality

2006-12-02 02:45:16 · 21 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

and does the fine grain distinction matter?
Maybe you're just vapid.

2006-12-02 02:44:54 · 4 answers · asked by You have 23 characters to work 3 in Other - Society & Culture

I plan on hitting up the mall... I want to steal clothing, electronics, shoes, etc...

Is it easier to steal from a big store like Target or a smaller store like The Gap?

Thanks

2006-12-02 02:44:03 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Society & Culture

Most people there are very hateful and intolerant...

2006-12-02 02:43:59 · 17 answers · asked by WhiteHat 6 in Religion & Spirituality

some people say that money is not everything but is'nt that true that without money our life will be miserable? well.. atleast i think so!! plz tell me what do u think cuz i wanna know about other ppl too...

2006-12-02 02:42:51 · 31 answers · asked by hariti 1 in Other - Cultures & Groups

2006-12-02 02:42:39 · 4 answers · asked by Resolver 2 in Religion & Spirituality

Saving the planet... if Christians, Muslims etc (well lots of religious groups) believe that 'God' (Allah or whomever) made this planet, us and all the creatures and plants that habit it... why don't they all try saving it for God and themselves... like stopping travelling in planes & cars etc.... stop burning fossil fuels... etc etc... This way they could save God creation and thereby be eligible for a place in heaven... leaving the rest of us to actually enjoy air travel, car travel etc?

2006-12-02 02:40:41 · 15 answers · asked by Boring Old Fart 3 in Other - Cultures & Groups

So I asked a question about if the Devil is pleased if you don't believe he exists and I got some good answers that made sense to me. Now my question is, is it possible to believe in God and not the Devil? If God exists, would that pleas him?
Again I am really looking for answers from believer only to get their take on it. It does not help me in the least to tell me none of them exist because that is how I feel and I want to hear about other beliefs that are different than mine.
Thanks for all the answers.

2006-12-02 02:40:21 · 27 answers · asked by haiku_katie 4 in Religion & Spirituality