Xander

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Posts by Xander

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  142

  The State of the Union

  by Marvin Shilmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am an american, and so is my president.

  this is an iron no speech can hold.

  it can only be experienced.

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  Xander

  Everybody knows that the top 50% of earners pay 95% of the taxes

  Please tell me how removing taxes on stock dividends - essentially, taking the richest earners and removing any tax from them at all - helps the economy?
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  Global warming can be good

  by crownboy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  maybe if you are a shipper:.

  http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030128/sc_nm/environment_arctic_dc_1.

  science - reutersshrinking arctic ice to open new trade routetue jan 28,11:48 am etadd science - reuters to my yahoo!.

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  Xander
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  142

  The State of the Union

  by Marvin Shilmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am an american, and so is my president.

  this is an iron no speech can hold.

  it can only be experienced.

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  Xander

  Any actually listen to the Democrat response? I was actually surprised at how well reasoned it was.

  Bush presents 'alternative' health care for the elderly
  -> HMOs ain't much of an alternative

  Bush suggest a tax cut
  -> The top 1% of earners in America get more money back than the bottom 95% COMBINED?!?! YEAH, that's in favor of the average American
  -> And WTF kind of person is BEHIND removing taxes on stocks DIVIDENDS?!?! This is so unreal, it isn't even funny. (For the especially uneducated, this means essentially that the really rich in this country, who don't work a day in their life and live off of stock dividends suddenly go from being undertaxed to not taxed at all!)

  Bush wants war
  -> Actually, the Senator they just interviewed responded better to this. All Saddam's neighbor countries are developing WMD - ESPECIALLY Iran and Saudi Arabia. Whatever government replaces Saddam will have to develop WMD to defend itself. Do we then plan to occupy the entire region forever? Then what the hell are we doing in Iraq NOW?

  Bush continues talk of the budget and economy
  -> Interesting point. Whoever you think is to blame for the current crisis (IE., is this Bush's fault or fallout from Clinton?), you have to admit, under Clinton's White House, the gov't DID actually run a budget surplus. Under Bush, we are talking deficit after bigger deficit
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  12

  100% for

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i havn't been to a meeting in years, but i can still remember when we had to vote on something, it was always 100% for or 100% against.

  didn't it bother you to see how everyone looked around to see if someone dared to vote against the general trend?

  why were they so radical?

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  Xander

  Saddam just got re-elected with 100% of the vote! Amazing

  Like so?
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  11

  Gnostics

  by joannadandy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i am writing to the people on this board who are way smarter than i could ever hope to be, there are quite a few of you here, and have some understanding of religions.. i just picked up a book about gnostics.

  mainly because the back cover talked about william blake (who i already knew was gnostic) and john lennon being holders of this philosophy.

  it's supposedly a history of this religion/philosophy.. i am only half way through the first chapter...the author is rather full of himself and is constantly reminding the reader he went to oxford and subconciously knew of gnostic principles his whole life.

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  Xander

  Not sure you can simplify much.

  Anyway, from belief.net

  Gnosticism
  nos'ti-siz-uhm; from Gk. gnosis, "knowledge"
  
  A term used for a category of religions that emphasize knowledge as essential to salvation. Gnosticism appears in the early Christian centuries, but its origins and age are much debated, and at the present state of research it can hardly be proven to exist prior to Christianity. Neither unequivocally Christian, Jewish, Greek, nor Iranian, Gnosticism is not a clearly delineated religion, but rather a specific religious interpretative perspective. Gnosticism lives mainly in or on the edges of Christianity and Judaism and it bears a number of philosophical, astrological, and magical marks loosely belonging in the Near Eastern and Inner Mediterranean areas.

  Cosmologies

  Common to many Gnostic texts and systems are an emphasis on dualistic speculations (e.g., light vs. darkness, good vs. evil, the earthly realm vs. the heavenly world, or the Lightworld); a reevaluation of many biblical traditions (especially Genesis and the New Testament) so that the Old Testament God, for instance, becomes an inferior figure ignorant of Lightworld entities above and prior to himself; and a keen interest in the salvation of the human soul, which, due to its Lightworld origin, is opposed to the body it inhabits and possesses a superior knowledge. Gnostic mythologies offer intricate, detailed speculations on cosmic geographies, provide emotional descriptions of the fate of the soul in its material prison, and, in frequently impressive poetry, describe the soul's journey back to its lofty home. In brief, Gnosticism exemplifies the common religious and creative response of Late Antiquity to a feeling of alienation toward bodily, material, even social existence, and a burning interest in arriving at a higher, more authentic level of life. Far from leading to paralytic pessimism, this orientation caused Gnostics to create mythologies, ideologies, rituals, and organized communities. Subversive Gnostic interpretations, especially of the biblical traditions, elicited horrified, swift denunciations from the early fathers of the church, who rightly perceived the Gnostics as a menace to the budding Christian orthodoxy.

  Much of what we know about Gnostic doctrines and practices comes from these church fathers, but their accounts are unavoidably colored by a strong hostility toward Gnostics. Direct Gnostic testimonies are available from numerous sources: the Nag Hammadi texts (a cache of fifty-odd documents unearthed in Egypt in 1945); manuscripts found or bought by European scholars in recent centuries; and voluminous texts from two Gnostic groups--the Manichaeans (whose system became a "world religion" stretching from North Africa to China) and the Mandaeans (a still-extant community of Gnostics in Iran and Iraq). Various Gnostic texts show strong affinities with Greek philosophy, Syriac Christianity, and Iranian traditions.

  Cosmogonies

  Gnostic speculations tend to pose a "prehistory" to the creation accounts in Genesis, imagining a number of Lightworld angelic (aeonic) beings emanating or springing from one or more original, ineffable entities. A progression of male and female emanations eventually result in the lowest levels of aeons where the Old Testament God belongs. Ignorant of--or rebelling against--his more elevated predecessors, this god (sometimes called Samael, "the blind one") creates the visible, material world, the human body (an androgynous Adam or the pair Adam and Eve), and imprisons the human soul in it. Having thus separated the supreme god from the creator god, Gnostics give a negative evaluation of the latter and his minions. In parallel, heroic figures in the Bible turn into villains and vice versa, so that the serpent in paradise and Cain become principles of the light and of gnosis, while Noah turns into a collaborator with the ignorant creator. Gnostic ideas about Jesus tend toward splitting his personality, with Christ, the Lightworld aspect of Jesus, escaping crucifixion, while the bodily Jesus, a mere shadow of his real self, is destroyed on the cross.

  The principle of evil originates within the Lightworld itself, results unavoidably from the emanation process, or exists as a separate, anti-Lightworld entity from the beginning of creation. Personified (or hypostasized) evil is in many Gnostic myths portrayed as a tragic figure: he (it is usually male) knows of his wrongdoing and ignorance but seems unable to act differently, though he still hopes for his own, final redemption and return to home in the upper worlds. His mother, personified Wisdom or Error, is likewise tragic, but possesses more insight than her son. Human responsibilities include knowledge about the good and evil principles, the numerous aeonic beings populating the spheres between earth and Lightworld, and a firm sense of cosmic geography so that the ascending soul may know its way home. Anthropological models often correspond to cosmic maps: the upper human component is the spirit, the mid-level is the soul, and the material body roughly correlates with the macrocosm.

  Rituals

  Gnostic religions undoubtedly possessed a rich cultic life alongside the mythological/speculative component, but except for Manichaeism and Mandaeism--and a few scattered texts from other, less delineated traditions--we have only hazy evidence of the intricacies of Gnostic rituals. Initiations, baptisms, sacred meals, rituals for the dead, and techniques for ecstatic experiences are attested in various traditions. Community ethics, class divisions based on levels of gnosis, and aggressively polemical interests against "normative" Christianity and Judaism testify to organized Gnostic schools and groups eager to define themselves against outsiders and against one another.

  Gnosticism is also loosely used to indicate phenomena outside of late antiquity, e.g., Sufism, medieval European systems such as those of the Bogomils and the Cathars, William Blake's philosophy, and numerous New Age-related religions. Strictly speaking, however, the term ought to be reserved for the category of religions in Late Antiquity. With very few exceptions, these religions were overrun by Christian orthodoxy and early rabbinic Judaism and disappeared after the fifth and sixth centuries.
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  21

  Pics of Super San Diego

  by RandomTask in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is the area scarlet and i live in.

  its about 10 minutes from downtown:.

  ^ one of the local gay bars, s&m welcome.

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  Xander

  It certainly is a pretty little city from these pics. Never been to California at ALL. Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, but no CA yet.

  Seems a lot like Phoenix. Only, you know, CLEANER.
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  52

  A Plan to Stop Gun Violence

  by Crazy151drinker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ok folks here is my plan to reduce the amount of gun violence in the u.s. im sorry but i cannot help out the european countries becuase a) i dont live in europe and b) only naughty people have guns in europe.. ok. i have come to the conclusion that drugs in the u.s. need to be not only de-criminalized but legalized so that they can be taxed.

  by legalizing drugs the profit gained by selling them will plummet and it will not be cost effective for gang members and cartels to import/deal drugs in the u.s. and the violence surrounding drugs will vanish as there will be no motive (ie $$$$$) to commit such violence.. ok. now the problems.

  1) no one likes to admit they are wrong (especially the govt.).

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  Xander

  May I pose a question to spanner?

  I'm curious, since you are so opposed to 'drug' use.

  What is your position on alcohol and cigs? Do you smoke or drink?

  I may be wrong, and terribly misevaluate your character, but you seem to be someone who would gleefully plunge us right back into alcohol prohibition, as well, given the chance.
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  33

  Saddam's Nuclear Weapons - Busted

  by Perry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  iraq nuke evidence found, american media buries, el rushbo unearths

  january 20, 2003

  it is just stunning and amazing that the united nations weapons inspectors have uncovered evidence that proves saddam hussein is trying to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons, and no one in the american media cares.

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  Xander

  A massive nuclear war WOULD effect us. Even a dozen nukes going off in the middle east WON'T. Hell, we've tested that many nukes ABOVE GROUND and in OUR OWN COUNTRY, with no negative effect.

  You people seriously overstate the capability of nuclear weapons. Yeah, they are really, REALLY big bombs. And fallout sucks, but lethal doses of it don't travel all the way around the world! (Unless you set the nuke off WAY THE HELL HIGH in the atmosphere, but there really isn't any reason to do that, because it won't actually damage anything then. And the Chernobyl disaster would not have any parallel in any way at all to a nuclear attack.)

  I'm not saying a limited nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan or Iran and Iraq would be all roses and the best thing for the world ecology, but it's not a global catastrophe that the US should do everything in its power to interfere with and stop (RE: starting another war and occupying another foreign country whose residents ALREADY don't like us).

  As to what that would do to oil prices? Well, hell, we've needed to, and been able to, get off middle east oil for a LONG time now. Maybe that would give the politicians a kick in the pants to start USING some of the alternative energy sources we've already researched, and put more research into others.
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  52

  A Plan to Stop Gun Violence

  by Crazy151drinker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ok folks here is my plan to reduce the amount of gun violence in the u.s. im sorry but i cannot help out the european countries becuase a) i dont live in europe and b) only naughty people have guns in europe.. ok. i have come to the conclusion that drugs in the u.s. need to be not only de-criminalized but legalized so that they can be taxed.

  by legalizing drugs the profit gained by selling them will plummet and it will not be cost effective for gang members and cartels to import/deal drugs in the u.s. and the violence surrounding drugs will vanish as there will be no motive (ie $$$$$) to commit such violence.. ok. now the problems.

  1) no one likes to admit they are wrong (especially the govt.).

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  Xander

  My observation is that one of this poor man's problems, alchohol, is legal. The other isn't. For the life of me, I can't see that giving him two legal addictions is going to help him in the least

  Why is is society's responsibility to care?

  I'm not interested in helping HIM per se - this one individual. It's society AS A WHOLE that this would help.

  Would legallizing drugs cause some people to lose it and their life spin out of control into oblivion? Oh, I'm sure it would. Same as does alcohol. And tobacco. Yes, a few might be hurt by this. But, what is the net effect? Crime is reduced! (Look what happened when alcohol prohibition was ended - it's not like the cause and effect are in question)

  Does not the needs of the many outweigh the good of the one?
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  33

  Saddam's Nuclear Weapons - Busted

  by Perry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  iraq nuke evidence found, american media buries, el rushbo unearths

  january 20, 2003

  it is just stunning and amazing that the united nations weapons inspectors have uncovered evidence that proves saddam hussein is trying to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons, and no one in the american media cares.

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  Xander

  Ah, yes, the famous "Now-that-we've-got-them,-it-seems-like-a-good-idea-to-ban-further-research-on-them-for-everybody-else.--You'd-better-sign,-or-we- might-use-them-on-you.--You-know,-just-saying.-Treaty"

  If you could prove conclusively that Saddam has plans to USE such weapons ON US, then you'd have a case US fighting a war with him. You can't.

  If he had them, might he use them on his own people? Well, it's a little unlikely, given the fallout and all (Iraq is not a big country), but you never know. Might he use them on his neighbors? Oh, it's possible, and that would make a good case for his neighbors to try and invade him. In case you haven't looked at a world map lately, that's not us.

  Now, if our leaders came up with a plan to ASSASSINATE Saddam, that shouldn't be a problem. Just make sure you take out the rest of his family, too.