Always in His Presence said:

Good that the tribe sticks together, but I did not ask either of you. And the silence from the one I did ask is deafening

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They probably have other things to do with their time than to be replying to a 9 year old zombie thread you chose to revive for goodness knows what reason.

There’s also a PM or ignore function if you don’t want to reply to others but don’t you cop an attitude with me just because your thread has backfired.

Quick Draw McGraw

Valletta said:

.

The more illegals that are gone the less the strain on our healthcare system.

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Why not simply deport all our poor (and those lame, sick) or simply refuse them medical service. Reducing the number of immigrants is NOT the answer to providing better service for our poor. The answer is for the society being willing to pay for medical services.

I am interested in providing better health care to more people. We are not the most unskilled and poorest of the world's democracies. We CAN do much better. Yes, we should be more efficient in our delivery of services. The PRIMARY issue is that the US is that the well-to-do are not willing to pay higher taxes. They prefer very low taxes for themselves and for Trump's millionaire friends.

Yes, having charities provide the help the poor is an option. We have a choice for the poor: pay for health care, have the government provide MORE help, count on charities to provide the help, or simply look the other way while the poor don't have access to healthcare.

dms1972 said:

No fundamentalism exists outside the US too. I think a lot of the churches here (N. Ireland) tend toward fundamentalist, or evangelical. We have many denominations, there is at least four Presbyterian denominations, and many of the others Anglican, Methodist, Baptist etc, but I don't think there are very many Lutheran churches here.

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If you were in the US, I'd suggest visiting an Episcopal church, as we're mostly free from the no-drinking-no-dancing prohibitions. But I don't know enough about the Anglican congregations in Northern Ireland to know how culturally similar they are to our Episcopal parishes.

Sportsballfan said:

So are we just allowed to make little adjustments and that’s allowed?

If I claimed Trump was “grabbing them in their purse”, would that be fine.

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I have no idea what this post means...

BCP1928 said:

He won that case, remember?

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I wasn't aware, though even in winning the case the act still has a chilling effect.

BCP1928 said:

It just makes too much of a nuisance. And it's always Evangelicals, nobody else makes a fuss about it and some don't think it's an appropriate place to play.. Why should your religion be privileged in that way?

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There you go jumping at shadows again. Where have I asked for a privileged status for any particular religious expression? I'm all for it being open to all, what I am opposed to is the "secular" privilege that is actually nothing more than hostility to religion rather than even handed pluralistic sentiment. I'm even of the opinion that fake religions like Satanism should enjoy the same access.

Fervent said:

You're making this sound far more nefarious than what I'm proposing, because even the coach/teacher going to a separate location and allowing students to join them is not allowed. In fact, I am relatively certain there was even a recent case where a coach was fired for praying by the flag pole with no student involvement before football games.

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He won that case, remember?

Fervent said:

And when such violations occur, there are the structures in place to deal with them. But that's no reason to relegate the practice.

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It just makes too much of a nuisance. And it's always Evangelicals, nobody else makes a fuss about it and some don't even think it's an appropriate place to pray.. Why should your religion be privileged in that way?

Anything but Shakespeare.

Q. What's for dinner?
A. Whatever is on sale.

I've gone though my whole life this way and spend very little on food. And avoid process food, since it is always more expensive than putting some effort into cooking.

GoldenBoy89 said:

The only grand claim I see in this thread is that Obamacare is collapsing. It’s been over 9 years (15 since it was signed into law).

How about we start with backing up that grand claim first?

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iluvatar5150 said:

No, it means that you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re attempting to shoot more blindly partisan barbs, but are so uninformed about the subject that all you’ve succeeded in doing is make yourself look foolish.

Many of us have given you examples of goals that were realized. Why not take that as a jumping off point from which to educate yourself?

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Good that the tribe sticks together, but I did not ask either of you. And the silence from the one I did ask is deafening

Trophonius said:

The Name of the Rose.


I am watching the 2016 lectures (I liked them more than the high-budget recording after he got famous). I don't know about the book, but I think they're brilliant. Also, I wish I had his speaking skills


I like the author. I read Borne and The Strange Bird in 2021. Annihilation has a movie adaptation too. Some were readings for a class on Ecogothic horror.

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I have only seen the film Name of the Rose, starring Sean Connery, Christian Slater, and F. Murray Abraham.

The film Annihilation I discovered, after reading the books, has almost nothing to do with the books except the name and a few plot points.

I have begun Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem. He has some interesting descriptions of the surface of Titan. I know eventually it goes into a misconception during First Contact situation. It would likely not make for a good film as it is more of an exploration of the difficulties Human would encounter in dealing with an alien intelligence.

Hans Blaster said:

There weren't.

The US Constitution was not written during or after a war. It was written (1787) in a nation at peace with an ineffectual government (the Articles of Confederation). There wasn't a war in 1789 when the First Congress under the new Constitution sent the Bill of Rights to the states for ratification. In fact the only amendments directly tied to a war were the 13th amendment (outlawing slavery) sent by Congress for ratification before Johnston surrendered to Sherman and the 26th amendment (18 year voting age) rapidly drafted by Congress and ratified by the states in 1971 during the Vietnam War under the theory "old enough to be drafted, old enough to vote".

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Seems rather arbitrary to start with the Constitution, as if it didn't take the Revolutionary war to start the whole process that led to it.

BCP1928 said:

You are not required to conceal your faith from your students.

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It's a grey area, with most school districts at least in my area being quick to suppress any such disclosure. There is an allowance for "discrete" displays of faith, but what that means is not well defined.

BCP1928 said:

And if they have the courage of their convictions they can go stand in the hall until you're done, right?

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You're making this sound far more nefarious than what I'm proposing, because even the coach/teacher going to a separate location and allowing students to join them is not allowed. In fact, I am relatively certain there was even a recent case where a coach was fired for praying by the flag pole with no student involvement before football games.

BCP1928 said:

Because it's what can happen when sectarian religious observances take place in schools.

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And when such violations occur, there are the structures in place to deal with them. But that's no reason to relegate the practice.

Fervent said:

Public events, public employment, that sort of thing.

There are appropriate conversation topics, sure. But personal disclosure isn't something that should be off limits, provided it doesn't completely derail the lesson. That religion is somehow treated as a third rail is exactly part of the problem, because open polite discussion of such matters seems necessary for a pluralistic society to develop consideration for diversity of belief. Requiring it to be a secretive endeavor in no way seems reasonable to me.

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You are not required to conceal your faith from your students.

Fervent said:

Ah, I misunderstood. What benefit is such a form supposed to produce that isn't already covered by current oversite practices?

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Fervent said:

To an extent, but it's been a long, slow, process towards an increasingly fractured society.

Yeah, we're seeing a shift towards more peer-based control systems and a shame-paradigm rather than a guilt one that traditional authorities made their bread and butter. In regard to religiosity, Christianity in particular, it calls for a re-contextualization of the gospel message away from the traditional guilt and punishment, to one that emphasizes the freedom from shame and the endurance of public humiliation Jesus went through on the cross. But too many of the religious authorities are either trying to abandon all principles and bend to public sentiments, or embracing a self-image that explains public irrelevance and dwindling church attendance as part of the cost of dicipleship.

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Yes, more or less that's what is needed.

The issue today isn't about enforcing guilt and moral duties so much as the fact that many people live under a kind of social erasure, on the margins of society, with lives judged insiginificant. That's related to one of the things that both Tom Holland and John Vervaeke point out was the original sociological revolution of early Christianity: the transformation of non-persons into persons.

Hans Blaster said:

Then what on the gravitationally bound ball of rock that is the Earth, are you talking about by "public square"?

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Public events, public employment, that sort of thing.

Hans Blaster said:

There are appropriate and non-appropriate questions and ways to reply to any inquries. Questions about a teacher or students religion would seem to lie in the non-appropriate category. (If they asked about your sex life it certainly would be a question you could shut down with some sort of "that's not appropriate for discussion in class" response.)

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There are appropriate conversation topics, sure. But personal disclosure isn't something that should be off limits, provided it doesn't completely derail the lesson. That religion is somehow treated as a third rail is exactly part of the problem, because open polite discussion of such matters seems necessary for a pluralistic society to develop consideration for diversity of belief. Requiring it to be a secretive endeavor in no way seems reasonable to me.

Hans Blaster said:

I said nothing about taxing churches. Form 990 is filed by non-profits detaining their income and expenses and officers. It is filed by organizations that *don't* pay taxes.

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Ah, I misunderstood. What benefit is such a form supposed to produce that isn't already covered by current oversite practices?

Fervent said:

I don't think you're giving children enough credit here.

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And if they have the courage of their convictions they can go stand in the hall until you're done, right?

Fervent said:

Well, that's a failing on the part of the district since it's de facto establishment. Why do you think this is relevant?

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Because it's what can happen when sectarian religious observances take place in schools.

Hans Blaster said:

American government has been secularized for 200 years. American society has been rapidly secularizing for the last 50-60 years. The American *people* have been secularizing for the last 20 years. With that, church attendance and religiosity has declined in America.

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I disagree. Religion served a civil, ceremonial function in government and society, such as congressional chaplains, and from the beginning, none of the Founders were hostile to the civil institution of religion, that wasn't how they thought of the construction of the 1st Ammendment. French style secularism wasn't part of it.

Hentenza said:

I see you don’t have an answer either. From my perspective I don’t recall socialism ever working for long.

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What is probably most workable is a controlled hybrid of capitalism (not corporatism) and social welfare systems.

More of what the US was developing prior to the Reagan era, which smashed unions and unfettered corporatism.

Aryeh Jay said:

President Trump tries to reduce the suffering of the average American family from the longterm effects of Biden's disaster of an economy that people are still feeling the financial pain from and on and is ruthlessly attacked by the liberals.

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Trump's going to save us from there effects of the Trump Recession!

How?

With another recession!

RileyG said:

It must be very difficult to be a vegan considering how much animal products is in everything. Do you also not use honey or wear leather? Just curious.

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I don't buy leather or honey.

I'm probably not the strictest vegan, though. I don't take veganism to impractical lengths. There are all kinds of possible picayune debates that vegans can have about minutiae.

Landon Caeli said:

We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price

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About that stock market:

The [US] stock market lags dozens of countries, in a year of record highs The U.S. stock market lags behind dozens of countries, even in a year of record highs



Why did the US market start lagging the rest of the world after Trump took office?

BCP1928 said:

A group of children under the authority of a teacher are not really in a position to give informed consent in such matters.

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I don't think you're giving children enough credit here.

BCP1928 said:

Here's another example: The famous Texas football game prayer case, Santa Fe School District v. Doe. The practice was to have a student-led prayer over the loudspeakers at football games, always an Evangelical Protestant prayer. A group of parents sued the school--no, not "secularists, Catholics and Mormons. Early on in the proceedings, they offered a compromise, that the prayer should be rotated around the different faith groups present in the student body but the district turned them down flat. It had to be an Evangelical Protestant prayer or nothing. In the end, they got nothing.

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Well, that's a failing on the part of the district since it's de facto establishment. Why do you think this is relevant?

Studyman said:

Let me know where you think I'm off the rails, if indeed you do. Thanks for the discussion.

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Studyman said:

I don't "ignore" any verse written in the Holy Scriptures, Ever! Please stop doing the exact same thing you accuse and complain about others doing to you.

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You asked where I thought you went off the rails. If you didn’t ask I would not have said. And If you did not want to know, don’t ask.
When I have more time I will look at the meat of your post annd respond accordingly. I appreciate your depth and time. Blessings