So it doesn't bother you in the slightest that this poster has been spewing racist hatred including giving instruction on how to kill black people this week but you might just look into a personal insult if I can satisfy you that it wasn't justified (as if any such insult could be)? What is the point of publishing terms and conditions if you have absolutely no intention of enforcing them? I'm afraid I can not countenance continuing my involvement with this site as long as it is a safe harbour for racism and incitement to hatred. I've alerted you to the cancer. I won't be around to see if you decide to treat it before it becomes terminal.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Since this reply from @ChrisMaunder the same member has continued a spate of posts which are in flagrant disregard of the terms of use and/or the guidelines both in Lounge and Soapbox, one of which would have been sufficient ground to have him arrested in the UK, yet no action has been taken whatsoever and he continues to garner upvotes and abuse those who question him with apparent impunity. It's getting very difficult to believe that this is being taken seriously despite your assurances and one is forced to wonder whether there is some reason for this apparent favouritism.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

How absurd

I know, right. It's like you agreed terms of use that forbid ...

Quote:

Publish, post, upload, distribute or disseminate any inappropriate, profane, defamatory, pornographic, discriminatory, obscene, indecent or unlawful content, or any content that constitutes a hate crime.

Oh! Frankly I think it's a joke what you're allowed to get away with but as you obviously have someone in charge by the nadgers I don't suppose we can hope to be free of your abuse (in all senses of the word) any time soon.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Oh dear me no! The bad grammar is all carefully sculpted for maximum effect[^].

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Well the first is neither here nor there since you have to go to the requisite number of masses whether you actually take communion or not. The second is required of no other Christian denomination so it's certainly more demanding than that. In reality no priest is going to let you get away with once a year if he can help it. This was, in any case, a discussion about obligations placed upon children (and the effect in later life) and in that there is no doubt that Catholicism is far more intense. Most Catholic children will attend Catholic schools with a full programme of religious teaching and observance in addition to attending services with their parents. Being a Catholic child is for most a 24/7 job!

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

I think this will comes as news to Catholics! The Duties of Catholics as Listed in the Catechism 1. To attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation and rest from servile labor. 2. To receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation at least once a year, if aware of committing a mortal sin. 3. To receive Holy Communion at least once a year, between the first Sunday of Lent and Trinity Sunday. 4. To observe the fast days and abstinence days established by the Church. 5. To contribute to the material support of the Church And that's just for starters.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

All well and good but totally off the point. Faith in God is not incompatible with the acceptance of scientific theories nor is the belief that the Bible is

Quote:

useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

a requirement to give it priority over actual observed fact when it comes to history or science. Faith requires a fool's wisdom, not an idiot's intelligence. It should enrich knowledge not deny it. Faith is not in anyway the antithesis of science unless you elect to make it so and the very second that you do so you relegate faith to just another gnosis and embrace a heresy. No religion which rejects science as a legitimate enterprise and normal expression of God's intentions for man's intelligence can survive long other than as a parody and ultimately a travesty of the faith it espouses increasingly extremist as it it folds ever more destructively in on itself. That is as evident in Westboro as it is in IS.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Richard Deeming wrote:

So you're saying that religions do adapt to new facts? That, in fact, they are a "flawed method", rather than a "proven truth"?

Well, they should be. If we theologians could only get fundamentalist Christians to read the Bible as the record of an experimental faith which hypothesises understandings of God only to have them fail in the harsh light of experience and history then refines and even totally reworks them which it is rather than as the cold, dead, immutable 'Word of God', we'd be laughing! Human beings sadly have little capacity to deal with a living, dynamic God, so much of Christianity has simply returned the risen Christ to the tomb where he's least dangerous by reinstating the very Pharisaism that he overturned. God is indeed dead in so many Christian churches and you don't have to look far to see who's holding the bloody knife!

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

No, it's not a guess. That's just silly talk. It is a rational, logical explanation of observed fact which merely lacks a complete proof usually by dint of inaccessibility of repeatable experimental evidence. It may be flawed, it may contain errors, but it is nowhere near as flimsy as a guess. Admittedly anyone who tells you that the theory of evolution by natural selection is a complete, indisputable, factual and historically accurate account of the creation and development of life on Earth is either deluded to the point of hubris or a charlatan. But anyone who claims that the account in Genesis represents a reasonable alternative is just an idiot not least because it as plain as the nose on your face that the writers and redactors of that account never intended it to be one. The Genesis accounts (for there are quite clearly at least two, entirely different) are guesses, not theories, and until the madness of the late 19th Century rejection of Darwin nobody really ever thought otherwise.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

The Pew Research Center is a good source for this kind of stuff, to wit ... Half of U.S. adults raised Catholic have left the church at some point | Pew Research Center[^]

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Adherence to Hinduism is a difficult thing to quantify because it covers such a wide range of practices and is for many more cultural observance than strictly religious. When push comes to shove few Hindus would be likely to go to the wall for Hindu beliefs. Studies suggest that Islam loses as many adherents through conversion as they gain and that the perceived increase in numbers recently is almost entirely due to an increase in birth rate with a corresponding rise in nominatively Islam children. How this will play out when they reach adulthood remains to be seen.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

The Guardian review was a bit on the fence so I didn't indulge thinking I could do a binge watch later on if the messages were more positive. So I'll be just as interested in what anyone has to say m'sen.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Incoherent rants are fine but they do rather make it difficult for anyone to respond! :|

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

That rather depends on what you mean by 'this', doesn't it?

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Mycroft Holmes wrote:

Oh wait it is written in the book of contradictions.

Actually, it's not. That was my whole point in the long comment above. A physical Hell is a 5th Century invention and that of a heretic to boot!

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

aaryan42 wrote:

Religion is like crack. If you give it to the kids early enough, they'll be hooked on it for life.

Quite the contrary, in fact. Several studies show that those denominations and faiths that demand most in the way of religious expression from young children suffer the highest adult rejection rates.

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Rage wrote:

Laser rhymes with expensive.

No, it doesn't. Not these days. Anyway, anything's got to be cheaper than buying a new cartridge for every print run, surely?

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

Then that God has no right to expect to be worshipped or loved in any way. It is a moral imperative to treat such a God with utter contempt, whatever the cost, and to treat his followers likewise!

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!

It would be hard to find a modern Greek scholar who does not think the interpretation of theopneustos as indicating the divine authorship of the Scriptures is entirely wrong. It fails to take into account the more general thrust of Pauline theology and understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit. The word must be interpreted as sacramental, that is to say that the words of scripture become sanctified in the moment of being read and understood by the believer as both the text and the mind are filled with the Holy Spirit. This is much more in tune with the early Christian's understanding of Christ as the living, dynamic God and Paul's insistence on the constant imannence of God in the Spirit, and, incidentally, with the views of later Pauline theologians such as Augustine and Luther. For all of them the sacredness and authority of Scripture lies in the relationship between word and mind infused with the Holy Spirit in the present moment. This is echoed in Paul's words about foolishness becoming wisdom when seen from the believer's position rather than the unbeliever's and other examples of the transformational power of the Spirit creating the Kingdom of God from the most everyday of things in sacramental relationships. That theopneustos cannot reasonably be interpreted as declaring divine authorship is reinforced by the absence anywhere else in the Bible itself nor the early Church of any indication that there was a belief in the actual involvement of God in the actual selection of and writing of the words of Scripture or any suggestion from the writers of epistles, gospels, or revelation that they were in any way under the control of God when writing. In Paul's case in particular, the number of errors, false starts, and non sequiturs renders any such suggestion preposterous. Moreover the context of Paul's remark here must also be taken into account here as it is clearly a response to what would have been an important issue for the early Christians; having rejected the Law as a means of salvation or a legitimate expression of our relationship with God should we not also reject the writings in which it is enshrined? Paul's answer is entirely more understandable as a claim that God through the Spirit can make use of even the apparently obsolete Torah than that it's all God's actual words. To claim the latter is as good as saying that God is a liar or deceiver or that Jesus was not the Son of that God thereby completely undermining Christian belief. The concept of divine authorship of Scripture simply belong

Alive and kicking![^]

I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!