georgesbluegirl

nebula: yes. i am a christian. i can be a christian and understand and love "imagine." the song isn't even actually saying that god does not exist, nor even that heaven doesn't exist - it merely asks us to suppose, to think about living life NOW, in peace, and what might be possible in a world of love. but if a message of friendship, peace and love is not christian, than neither am i, i guess.

1) stay free, and think. word. 2) the song is about realizing a peaceful harmony between mankind TODAY - not just hoping for it in the future. my heart was breaking as i read people's criticisms of it. it's one of those timeless songs that touches me every time i hear it with both its intent and execution (the chord changes in the chorus between lines give me shivers, especially to play). the whole message comes down to this - what if we just had this life, and no other, to live? what if there was nothing but today, and each other? what would the world be like if everyone could put down their guns and just be with each other? it's idealistic and wistful and moving in its own quietly powerful way. (some call it trite. i think it's perfect) anyway, as for the possessions - john lennon wasn't exactly born into riches, and god knows he struggled with the idea of making as much money as he did. he did a lot of great things. and wrote a lot of great songs. 3) 40 years ago today (well, yesterday...it's after midnight here), lennon made his famous remarks about the beatles being "bigger than jesus christ."

I don't know how many times I've said this and gotten yelled at for saying it, but thanks for pointing it out again. You have to look at the various books of the Old and New Testaments with an understanding that their authors put into words the understanding of the divine that they received THROUGH THE LENS of their own time and experience.

amen to that. in response to this whole discussion - how can we punish people for loving each other?

yup. what happens in somebody's bedroom between consenting adults is none of the law's business.

and yet there are already tons of unwanted children out in the world...

and how would the hypothetical illegality of "doing that" do any good, or affect you in any way if you are not gay?

thanks amor. and if only those in intel are qualified to judge the relative merit of elected officials, how are we supposed to make decisions about who we want/who we want to keep in office?

it's not all "bush" per se...but he certainly isn't helping. so many things have been mishandled that i don't know where to start, so i won't. anyway, don't underestimate lamont - remember that you're talking about connecticut, not ohio.

what good do sodomy laws do anybody?

god gave us brains. we really should use them.

a) there has been a lot of speculation that what happened in SD will be overturned in november, given that the public seems to be uneasy about the magnitude of the ban. i read an article recently that included a broad survey of residents, many of whom said that they were personally against abortion but couldn't bring themselves to support a law without exception for rape or incest. it's going to be interesting to follow. b) the grounding for the roe v wade ruling is somewhat unsound ("privacy"), but there are many other solid constitutional arguments that can be - and will be, and have been - made to justify abortion rights and to keep abortion legal. i don't forsee any massive changes, especially with the current court.

you don't think this is a good compromise?

you actually don't need a prescription for birth control. you can get it at various health centers, either for free or for a fee (for example, my college's health center stocks it for students at no charge, pending a pelvic exam). eventually most people switch to prescription for insurance reasons. regardless, there are certainly situations - i won't play the "if" game, but use your imagination - where getting a prescription for plan b is impractical or impossible. i actually have a few packs (because of, again, my health center, which gives it out to all female students) - the safest bet is to have it on hand in case of emergency, but i don't see a problem in selling it over the counter (NOT on the shelves) to those over 18.

NO. The "morning-after pill" PREVENTS conception (which does not occur immediately during intercourse) from ever occurring. What you're referring to is what MAY SOMETIMES occur if the pill is taken in the last 24 hours of the 72 hour window of effectiveness (Plan B can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex, but is most effective if taken within the first 24 hours - at which time conception has DEFINITELY not occured).

sounds like with all these laws, jesus would have been in as much trouble with "the law" today as he was back in the day! ;-)

sounds like another example of NIMBY syndrome to me. (not in my backyard)

SORRY - what i meant to say was that climate change is the RULE RATHER THAN THE EXCEPTION! duh. that was an important part of my point! oops... PS: as an environmental studies major, i feel it is my duty to recommend "an inconvenient truth." please put aside your feelings about al gore, remember that he actually was criticized by democrats when he served as vp for pushing this too much - this is an ETHICAL cause rather than a political one. peace KEG

no, we didn't have monitoring devices a few centuries ago...but we CAN tell temperatures from past millennia, incidentally. ice core drilling can be used to check CO2 levels (which, incidentally, goes hand in hand with climate fluctuation), and more direct evidence comes from geological evidence (like glacial moraines), pollen checks, etc. so we know enough to know that climate change IN AND OF ITSELF is the exception rather than the rule. where scientists have disagreed in the past is, as you pointed out, nebula, whether the current warmer trend has anthropogenic origins. at this point, the evidence points to yes. climatologists and meterologists will almost all tell you similarly. the fact is that since the industrial revolution, there has been an upper trend that is much more severe than other historical trends. and if you think about it, it makes sense! we are emitting all kinds of gases in huge quantities in a way that has never been done before, gases that we KNOW trap heat in the atmosphere. oceanic temperatures are rising, flood stages are increasing, and glaciers are melting - very severely in many places. it is a problem that must be addressed - and the US is one of the main culprits in the problem. i personally believe that it is our responsibility to not only work on addressing the issue of GHG emissions with green technology (which by the way has the upshot of reducing our dependence on expensive foreign oil...) such as hydrogen fuel cells, but to assist rapidly developing nations such as india and china in implementing this technology, so that they don't make the same "mistakes" we did. in any case, even one of my very republican military uncles (who happens to be a meterologist) admitted to me that he thinks it's time to step up and address global warming, which i consider to be a small, although somewhat bitter, victory in our ongoing argument about environmental policy. if we accept that God granted us stewardship of the planet, how can we not respect the earth enough to make conscious decisions in order to protect it? God entrusted humans with his greatest work - Creation. let's try to prove ourselves worthy stewards by showing His love to the world that has been granted us.

Tell that to my cousin in Ramadi who just lost two men in his unit. People are still dying - the war is hardly over.

No need to be hostile. It was a peaceful demonstration. ' Besides, it was organized a long time ago, certainly before anyone knew the president would be in Texas post-Rita. When you have an event that scale with people coming from all over the nation (I go to school in Maine and we sent a group to DC) you can't cancel out at a moment's notice. Marching on the capital was symbolic, anyway.

Don't confuse socialism with communism...it's one of my pet peeves! I've never understood the immediate lash against socialism as an ideology on this site given that most of Jesus's teachings closely resemble socialist ideals. (Socialism as a government, of course, can't ever work). Besides I was just making a comment about the nature of the free market. Amazon would never have opened this new section in their enterprise if they thought they wouldn't make a profit - a pretty decent profit, at that - from it.

I imagine that most of you are firm believers in capitalism, right? Well, new markets for growth is what capitalism thrives on.... So nobody else finds this funny? At all?

True that...way to go, AI.

Not like the Bible talks about raping and killing or anything (that's in Isaiah, by the way)... Which is why I read the Bible somewhat openly. But all that aside...why is everyone so upset about this and not that the United States government won't act in Sudan despite sanctioned genocide because their government supports us? Why aren't people more enraged?