utemia

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

real life satire - better than watching tv.

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Thanks for the link Lula, I checked it out but it is a LOT to read and I only skimmed over the threads. The link I gave is to a translated version of the Reichskonkordat and there is a small explanation why a international treaty made under Hitler was carried over to the new german state. That is about as far as I wanted to go into it. PS Germany is a special case in that it wasn't until the 19th century that a somewhat cohesive political union that could b

Reply to Strange english vocabulary (that I learned today) in Misc JoeUser Forums

Thanks! I didn't know those two.

Reply to Strange english vocabulary (that I learned today) in Misc JoeUser Forums

I have to admit that I don't really know that much swearing or derogatory terms besides the commonly known. Go on.. lol the most fun in any language are those idioms.

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

DrGuy - the treaty I was referring to is called "Reichskonkordat" and it is not without controversy because it was signed under Hitler's reign in 1933. I won't go into the controversial issues here, but the information is easy to research. The Federal Republic of Germany was viewed as the legal successor of the 3rd Reich and so the treaty remained valid and is valid today. LINK

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

[quote]But Christianity can safely be "criticised" and hence such a movie is regarded as a "documentary"[/quote] Have you seen the movie? Your comment doesn't sound like you have or maybe it's been a long time ago. There is no narration, no negative commentary and blatant criticism of christianity. The only people that are speaking are interviewees that are speaking freely - (of course, the way the movie is cut together and the question that had been asked to get people talking always should

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

I agree with your sentiment about the movie. I found it very interesting in a creepy sort of way nontheless. The most interesting part for me of that film was that there was no narrator and especially the kids seemed to talk freely. Of course, I didnt know what questions had been asked to get them talking. I think you're spot on with the comparison to jihadists, that part scared me the most. It is good to know that these aren't in the majority. Even if they stand for a minorit

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Germany has valid treaties signed with the Vatican that concern the teaching of religion in schools and the qualification of the teachers. That is one intertwinement of government and religion. Nowadays, students can opt out of religious class and take ethics or philosophy classes instead. Also, catholic religion in school was more about church history and knowledge about religion and theology and not so much about conveying faith. My teachers weren't priests either. Then there is an

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

I didn't think this sideissue warranted so much attention. It's more meant in the direction of a social sciences approach to how societies and organized religions mesh together and my internal focus had been more on the question why different religious beliefs are enough grounds to kill someone. War over religion seems to be so pointless. Thank you for your answer, KFC. It is interesting to hear your point of view and personal experience on this, all I had was a statistic and op

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

You treat a church, the core of moral values for many, like any political lobbyist group. Fine, you can do that. But I think a pastor has no business in telling his people which candidate possesses the correct moral base and who doesn't. They should stay out of politics, I sort of like the concept of no clerical influence on political decisions. That is my oppinion. They don't have the right to influence policy - my oppinion. Thankfully, they stay in the background in Germany ev

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

[quote]You would notice that trend among other groups too. Evangelicals are just easier to identify as a group. I don't understand why democracy is good but when people team up to support a party, it's suddenly an attempt to control the masses. Isn't that what democracy is about?[/quote] I notice other groups as well, I just went with the Evangelicals because I had once specifically read about them while doing a lil research for a presentation on the movie "jesus camp" and thuse

Reply to PADDLING in Misc JoeUser Forums

Any 4th grader waiting to meet "the board of education" has a sorry butt - don't have to know lil jimmy to know THAT :)

Reply to PADDLING in Misc JoeUser Forums

[quote who="toothachesrevenge" reply="8" id="2556059"]they wanted to paddle me for not doing my homework. crazy. this is a small story to my dad, but a defining moment in my life. i will never forget the faces of my pricipal and math teacher when they came in the office and saw my dad in full army-man uniform. priceless. they left me alone to dwell on the spanking that was coming. i was scared as hell, so i called my dad at work. he was there in what seemed like less tha

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Bibleman was totally overthetop - it looked like batman with a purple mask and cape. I mean honestly, any kid running around that in the neighbourhood would be made fun of or come off as slightly weird and crazy or even brainwashed. Kids don't usually concern themselves with meaning of life stuff. They're kids, they want to have fun and build a tree house or go to the beach etc. And the parents who would buy their kid a costume like that.. that's just too strong. As for people trying

Reply to THE LETTER in Misc Stardock Forums

I never watched the tv series of MASH, but I love the movie. It's been a while since I watched it though.. what was the name of major hot lips again? BFD, looking forward to hear more of Pvt Bee, must have been an interesting character.

Reply to THE LETTER in Misc JoeUser Forums

Conmen are always looking sincere and honest and nice, that's why they are able to get people to believe them in the first place. Unless they're downright foolish to forget the return mail adress on a letter and their whole scam falls appart. Whatever happened to him, did you follow it up?

Reply to Don't Talk Religion At Garage Sales in Blogging JoeUser Forums

It's best not to get too involved in debate with people on a mission - they are often agressive for no apparent reason. On a side note, I never understood the popularity of the christian music and book indsutry. We don't have anything like that where I live. I remember quite clearly looking for a special candle for the baptism of my niece in Sacramento. It's a RCC custom and we had to shop around for it and were lucky in in this one huge christian store that had a ton of music, hymn b

Reply to Global Warming - A Comedy of Errors in Politics JoeUser Forums

lol - thanks for keeping up! I find it a fascinating topic to have a conversation about. Philosophy is the foundation of natural science, of all science. Philosophers were the first who tried to come up with a systematic model to explain the universe and the world, and out of that evovled the rest. So even if this getting philosophical might seem totally off topic from the op, I see a connection. Just think about people like Alexander Humboldt, adventurer, explorer, botanist and philo

Reply to A Small Adventure in Blogging JoeUser Forums

I like city buses. Public transport is really well organized where I live, and even in remote areas. But, admittedly, cities here aren't usually structured the way they are in the US, baring some exceptions of course.

Reply to The price of intelligence in Humor JoeUser Forums

[e digicons]:grin:[/e]

Reply to Global Warming - A Comedy of Errors in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote]It always comes down to that. But then how do you assign values? What is the basis of the value? IN any society today, the basis always comes back to money. In one society, they may value a human life for pittance (most dictators do that), and in others they place a much higher value on it. In some areas, a human life is worth more than anyone can afford, and so the CBA always comes out with very high safety features. In others, they assign a lower value, so safety, while importa

The price of intelligence in Humor JoeUser Forums

In the hospital the relatives gathered in the waiting room, where their family member lay gravely ill. <span style

Reply to Global Warming - A Comedy of Errors in Politics JoeUser Forums

Government oversight is probably a better phrase than intervention. Apparently I am more socialist inclined than you, but I don't know if the reasons I gave conincide with a socialist market theory. The ones I know never really cared about safety and health issues or the enviconment. I really had to think about those principles because I was in an exercise and the task was to evaluate different potential building sites for a fiction industrial park according to a biocentric ethical vi

Reply to Global Warming - A Comedy of Errors in Politics JoeUser Forums

Isn't there a danger that workers/environment are only treated as means for the production of overall utility and not as ends in themselves if only the costs are regarded? I find that ethically dubious. There is another example from the essay regarding a decision from 1977 by the Sec. of Labor to reduce the permissible ambient exposure level for benzene from 10 ppm to 1ppm. The American Petroleum Institute challened that new standard in court. They argued that the benefits to workers

Reply to Global Warming - A Comedy of Errors in Politics JoeUser Forums

In this specific case government intervention is very dubious. But there are other scenarios where I really like that the government is playing watchdog. Most of these scenarios invovle negative externalities that are created in alot of industries like carcinogenic fumes, toxic waste, air and water pollution, workplace safety etc. One example for that